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ONIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

AND  THE  INTERREGNUM 

1642-1660 


JOHN  ASHBURNHAM. 


1(7 

Sussex  in  the  Great  Civil  War 

and  the  Interregnum 

1642-1660 

BY 

CHARLES  THOMAS-STANFORD 

M.A.,  F.S.A. 


LONDON 

PRINTED  AT  THE  CHISWICK  PRESS 

TOOKS  COURT,  CHANCERY  LANE 

1910 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  is  the  outcome  of  a  lecture  delivered 
at  the  Brighton  Public  Library  in  November 
1909,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Sussex  Archae- 
ological Society.  It  was  suggested  at  the  time,  in 
view  of  the  interest  now  taken  in  matters  of  local 
history,  that  the  lecture  should  be  printed  and  issued 
in  pamphlet  form.  But  a  mere  lecture  on  so  large  a 
subject,  hastily  put  together  for  a  temporary  purpose, 
and  lacking  any  due  distinction  between  the  essential 
and  the  trivial,  is  perhaps  not  worthy  to  be  clothed 
in  the  permanence  of  print.  I  have  endeavoured  to 
describe  with  more  completeness  and  discrimination 
the  part  played  by  Sussex  and  Sussex  men  in  what 
is  perhaps  the  most  momentous  epoch  of  English 
history.  It  happens  that  the  part  so  played  was  an 
important  one.  If  the  great  campaigns  of  the  Civil 
War  were  fought  out  elsewhere,  Sussex  nevertheless 
exerted  a  very  special  influence  on  the  result  of  the 
struggle;  and  no  county  can  show  a  lengthier  list  of 
men  who  had  a  leading  share  in  it. 

In  addition  to  the  ordinary  authorities  for  the 
events  of  the  period,  general  and  local,  I  have  made 
constant  use  of  the  fifty-two  volumes  of  the  Sussex 


VI 


PREFACE 


Archaeological  Society's  "Collections."  l  Since  1846, 
when  the  Society  was  founded,  successive  genera- 
tions of  antiquaries  have  laboriously  gathered  to- 
gether a  vast  store  of  facts  relating  to  the  county. 
In  such  a  series  there  will  of  course  be  some  writers 
whose  statements  must  be  accepted  with  caution; 
and  if  the  earlier  contributors  enjoyed  a  virgin  field, 
they  lacked  the  copious  sources  opened  to  us  by  the 
Reports  of  the  Historical  Manuscripts  Commission, 
and  other  Government  publications.  For  every 
statement  of  local  importance,  it  has  been  my  aim  to 
quote  my  authority;  and  I  hope  these  references 
may  be  of  use  to  any  one  who  is  tempted  to  inquire 
further  into  any  branch  of  the  subject.  Among 
recent  works,  I  am  especially  indebted  to  the  valuable 
articles  by  Miss  Phyllis  Wragge,  Mr.  L.  F.  Salz- 
mann,  and  Mr.  M.  Oppenheim  in  the  Victoria 
County  History. 

I  have  not  scrupled  to  quote  at  length  such  con- 
temporary documents  as  Mr.  Cawley's  letter  from 
Portsmouth,  Dr.  Bruno  Reeves'  account  of  the 
spoliation  of  Chichester  Cathedral,  Colonel  Apsley's 
description  of  an  episode  in  the  Royalist  invasion 
of  1643,  Dr.  Cheynell's  Chillingworthi  Novissima, 
the  Springate  letters,  and  the  Danny  papers.  These 
present  in  their  several  ways  a  picture  of  the  times 
not  to  be  approached  by  any  second-hand  narrative. 
As  a  rule  I  have  modernized  the  spelling  and 
punctuation  of  these  documents,  for  the  reasons 

1  Quoted  as  S.  A.  C, 


PREFACE  vii 

given  by  Carlyle  in  his  Introduction  to  Cromwell's 
Letters.  In  certain  cases,  such  as  Cheynell's  invec- 
tive, where  the  ancient  form  seemed  to  add  a  certain 
force  and  interest  to  the  language,  I  have  preserved 
it.  If  some  proper  names  are  not  spelt  with  a  slavish 
uniformity,  I  have  only  followed  the  fashion  of  the 
time.  Ryves  and  Reeves,  Springet  and  Springate, 
Yalden  and  Yaldwyn,  Gunter  and  Counter — these 
are  examples  of  the  variations  which  constantly 
occur  in  contemporary  records.1 

History  is  for  reading,  and  even  a  local  history 
should  not  be  a  mere  storehouse  of  facts;  I  have 
therefore  striven,  with  however  little  success,  to 
make  this  a  readable  narrative.  It  may  be  that  in 
the  attempt  to  weave  the  disconnected  and  often 
trivial  details  of  county  affairs  into  a  coherent  story, 
I  have  sometimes  been  tempted  to  wander  astray 
into  the  general  history  of  the  time.  To  such  lapses 
I  can  only  hope  that  my  readers  will  be  indulgent 

I  desire  to  express  my  thanks  to  Mr.  J.  Horace 
Round,  LL.D.,  Professor  C.  H.  Firth,  Mr.  I.  S. 
Leadam,  and  Mr.  L.  F.  Salzmann  for  valuable  sug- 
gestions; to  Colonel  Campion  for  permission  to  re- 
produce some  of  the  papers  in  his  possession;  and 
to  His  Grace  the  Duke  of  Richmond  and  Gordon 
for  a  similar  permission  as  regards  the  portrait  of  Sir 
William  Waller  which  hangs  at  Goodwood  House. 
To  Mr.  H.  D.  Roberts,  Director  of  the  Public 

i  For  Brighthelmstone  I  have  found  Bredhemson,  Brightsemson, 
Broadhemson,  and  Brathhampston. 


viii  PREFACE 

Library,  Museum,  and  Art  Galleries  at  Brighton,  I 
am  very  grateful  for  much  advice  and  assistance, 
both  literary  and  practical,  continually  and  cheerfully 
given. 

C.  T.-S. 

PRESTON  MANOR, 

BRIGHTON, 

September  1910. 


CONTENTS 

I.  BEFORE  THE  WAR Page  i 

War  and  county  boundaries,  Sussex  and  neighbouring  counties — Conventional 
ideas  and  modern  methods — Charles  and  Cromwell — the  Civil  War  not  a  war 
of  classes — the  division  in  Sussex — the  gentry — the  inhabitants  generally — 
agriculture — roads — the  iron  industry — destruction  of  timber — shipbuilding — 
decay  of  ports — Winch elsea — the  pier  of  Hastings — continued  importance  of  Rye 
— the  passage — Ship-money — privateers  and  pirates — general  social  conditions 
— great  houses — new  families — the  Parliament  of  1640 — the  politics  of  Sussex — 
the  Protestation — petition  of  1642 — Sussex  men  and  the  King — Sir  Thomas 
Lunsford  and  the  Tower — his  early  career — the  five  members — the  bravos  of 
Alsatia — the  King  leaves  London. 

II.  PURITAN  SUSSEX Page  22 

The  Marian  persecution — heavy  roll  of  Sussex  victims — "  the  blood  of 
martyrs ' '  a  stimulus  to  Protestantism — Early  Puritans  at  Rye — progress  of  opinion 
— evidence  of  Puritan  names — the  Rev.  John  Frewen  of  Northiam — his 
opponents — Chichester  Cathedral  in  1616 — parochial  neglect — spread  of  Puri- 
tanical ideas — the  Archdeaconry  Court  of  Lewes  and  the  Clergy — the  laity — 
trivial  offences — Laud  and  the  visitation  of  1635 — Sir  Nicholas  Brent  in  Sussex 
— Chichester,  Arundel,  Lewes — Rye  and  the  Bishop — Puritan  magistrates — the 
country  gentlemen. 

III.  PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER        .        .    Page  33 

The  raising  of  the  Standard  at  Nottingham — its  significance  little  understood 
— the  forces  to  be  engaged — the  trained  bands — infantry — cavalry — local  troops 
of  horse — Ford  and  Morley — Parliamentary  weakness  in  cavalry — harquebusiers 
and  dragoons — artillery — the  county  magazines — precipitate  action  of  George 
Goring  at  Portsmouth — his  previous  career — and  doubtful  character — the 
position  at  Chichester — William  Cawley — Surrender  of  Portsmouth — Colonel 
Morley's  vigilance — defence  of  East  Sussex — the  Cinque  Ports  and  the  Continent 
— alarm  at  Chichester — Sir  Edward  Ford  seizes  Chichester — Cawley's  letter  to 
Speaker  Lenthall — failure  of  relief  from  Portsmouth — Ford  advances  on  Lewes 
— impressment  of  countrymen — defeat  at  Hayward's  Heath. 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

IV.  THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER       .       .       .    Page  50 

Waller's  advance  into  Sussex — a  preliminary  skirmish — Thomas,  Earl  of 
Arundel — daringattack  on  Arundel Castle — itssuccess — Waller  before Chichester 
— a  parley — the  trained  bands — a  sortie — assault  commenced — the  sixth  day — 
a  trumpet  from  the  city — surrender  on  Waller's  terms — attitude  of  the  towns-folk 
— the  prisoners— Sir  E.  Ford— Sir  William  Morley— Sir  John  Morley— Bowyer, 
May,  Lewknor,  Gounter — the  Cathedral  clergy — Bishop  King — the  Dean,  Dr. 
Bruno  Ryves — his  account  of  the  spoliation  of  the  Cathedral — Sir  Arthur 
Haselrig — the  Cathedral  records — the  library — the  ruin  of  the  needle-makers 
— foreigners  in  Sussex — Anthony  Stapley  governor  of  the  city. 

V.  THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  „  Page  64 

Herbert  Morley— indifference  of  the  common  people — refugees  from  Sussex 
ports — Rye  and  Dieppe — Ford  active  again — an  approaching  cloud — "the 
neuter" — Waller  appointed  Major-General — his  base  at  Farnham — Cawley's 
letter  to  the  Speaker — Waller  and  the  soldiers'  pay — confidence  of  the  cavaliers 
— raid  on  Petworth — fight  at  South  Harting — Hopton's  invasion  of  Sussex — the 
plan  of  campaign — Stanstead  House — rally  of  Parliamentarians — Colonel  Apsley 
— his  account  of  his  capture — fall  of  Arundel — a  fight  at  Bramber — the  defence 
of  East  Sussex — the  Rye  troop — Samuel  Jeake — Captain  Carleton — Thomas 
Middleton  of  Hills  Place — Waller's  preparations. 

VI.  THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL    .        .       .  •     .    Page  82 

Waller  at  Alton — rapid  advance — capture  of  Cowdray  House — its  contents — 
the  situation  at  Arundel — Waller  takes  the  town — attempted  assassination  of 
Waller — the  Rev.  John  Coulton  and  his  friends — the  enlistment  of  prisoners — 
the  Castle  besieged — large  reinforcements — a  spy  captured — incidents  of  the 
siege — Hopton's  attempt  to  raise  it — Irishmen  and  Cornishmen — a  flag  of  truce 
— a  flippant  application — Waller  faces  Hopton — Hopton's  retreat — Warblington 
Castle — heavy  guns  at  Arundel — ladies  in  Waller's  Camp — terms  of  surrender 
— Stanstead  House  captured — difference  between  Stapley  and  Waller — Sir  E. 
Ford — his  father's  petition — sufferings  of  all  classes — Ford's  subsequent  career. 

VII.  CHILLINGWORTH,  CHEYNELL,  AND 

SPRINGATE Page  101 

Chillingworth  at  Arundel — his  early  career — at  the  siege  of  Gloucester — 
engines  of  war  in  the  Roman  method — a  son  of  the  Renaissance — his  enemy 
Cheynell — Chillingworth  at  Oxford — Cheynell's  history  and  book — Chilling- 
worth  being  sick  is  removed  to  Chichester — Cheynell's  arguments  with  him — 
the  dying  man  continually  harassed — "  preached  to  death  by  wild  curates" — 
controversy  over  his  burial — unseemly  scene  at  the  grave — "  The  Religion  of 
Protestants  "  buried  with  its  author — the  arrogance  of  the  bigot — time's  revenge 
— another  victim  of  the  siege — William  Springate  and  his  wife — her  letters  to 


CONTENTS  xi 

her  grandson — Springate's  up-bringing — a  Puritan  gentleman — Edgehill  and 
Newbury — Arundel — fatal  sickness — a  brave  woman's  journey  from  London — 
Springate's  death — his  character  and  accomplishments. 

VIII.  THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS  .       *       .    Page  119 

Parliament  and  the  delinquents — effect  of  threatened  confiscation — the  Seques- 
trating Committee  for  Sussex — John  Caryll  fined  at  Arundel — the  Committee  for 
Compounding — the  terms  of  Compounding — the  Earl  of  Arundel — Sir  Thomas 
Bowyer — May,  Sir  J.  Morley,  R.  Williams — the  Earl  of  Thanet — reasonable 
reductions — Sir  E.  Bishop — a  letter  from  the  Colony  of  Virginia — surrender  on 
Articles  of  War — Colonel  Counter  and  other  Sussex  men  at  Truro — a  riot  at 
Chichester — the  hard  case  of  John  Lewknor — Lunsford,  Alford,  and  others — 
augmentation  of  benefices  from  delinquents'  fines — Lord  Montague  and  William 
Yalden — the  Gages  and  other  recusants — Sir  Charles  Shelley  and  the  Committee 
for  Advance  of  Money — Peter  Courthope  and  Danny. 

IX.  THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY  .        .    Page  135 

The  Royalist  clergy's  case  worse  than  the  gentry's — clerical  delinquents — the 
Chichester  Chapter — the  Committee  of  Plundered  Ministers — lecturers — Mr. 
Chatfield  at  Horsham — local  Committees — Dr.  Francis  Cheynell — the  living  of 
Petworth — the  wives'  fifth  share — sufferings  of  ejected  clergy — the  case  of  Mr. 
Apsley  of  Pulborough — Mr.  Oliver  Whitby — the  Century  of  Malignant  Priests 
— Mr.  Peckham  of  Horsted  Parva — Mr.  Taunton  of  Ardingley — Mr.  Goffe  of 
East  Grinstead — "inadequacy" — Mr.  Null's  "scandalous  curates" — the  im- 
portant case  of  Mr.  Large  of  Rotherfield — his  "  bad  life  and  good  living" — his 
able  defence — a  picture  of  religious  life  at  the  time — hardships  inevitable — 
Colonel  Morley  at  Hastings — Mr.  Hinson  and  Mr.  Car. 

X.  THE  CLUBMEN Page  151 

The  St.  James  of  Dunkirk  ashore  at  Hene — a  valuable  prize— Waller  baulked 
— inadequate  salvage — Sussex  and  wrecks — a  compromising  picture — the  troubles 
of  Rye — Arundel  and  Chichester — Waller  and  the  gentlemen  of  Sussex — Cow- 
dray  House  garrisoned — Royalist  activily — Goring's  design — Algernon  Sidney 
at  Chichester — impatience  of  the  country  folk — free-quarter — an  incident  at 
Nuthurst — the  Berkshire  meeling — a  Royalisl  opportunity — the  Sussex  Clubmen 
— their  dispersal — refusal  to  pay  taxes — strong  measures — the  New  Model — In- 
dependency— Fairfax — the  iron-foundries — John  Browne. 

XI.  STEPHEN  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  ASHBURN- 

HAM       .......     Page  179 

The  King  and  foreign  intervention — the  three  sons  of  the  Rector  of  Stanmer 
— Dr.  Stephen  Goffe  sent  to  Holland — the  letter  of  introduction — a  proposal  of 


xii  CONTENTS 

marriage — Mazarin's  project — foreign  troops  to  land  at  Hastings — prolonged 
scheming — Dutch  diplomacy — an  anti-English  King — a  faithful  servant — the 
andenne  noblesse  of  Sussex — Jack  Ashburnham's  career — the  flight  from  Oxford 
— surrender  to  Hammond — a  barque  at  Hastings — Ormonde  escapes  thence — 
family  divisions — the  Danny  letters — Morley  and  Campion — Major  Shilbourne 
— humane  conduct  of  the  war. 

XII.  HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX      .          .      Page  196 

A  new  phase  of  the  struggle — Presbyterians  and  Independents — "the 
People  " — change  of  opinion  in  the  south-eastern  counties — the  Surrey  petition 
— outbreak  at  Horsham — prompt  measures  of  repression — a  descriptive  letter — 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke — a  day's  fighting — Thomas  Middleton — Anthony  Norton 
at  Rye — design  on  Chichester — Lord  Norwich  at  Colchester — an  invincible  army 
— Finance — excise — wages — price  of  corn — Lord  Dacre  and  Herstmonceux — 
servants — provisions — guests — sports — posting — a  peaceful  backwater — the  Rev. 
Giles  Moore  of  Horsted  Keynes. 

XIII.  THE  REVOLUTION Page  214 

The  Remonstrance  of  the  Army — an  address  from  Rye  to  Fairfax — public  policy 
and  local  grievances — the  King's  trial  and  execution — Parliament  purged — 
the  High  Court — Sussex  men  named  judges — JohnDownes  and  the  King's  appeal 
— the  Sussex  regicides — Whitehall — Bishop  Juxon — the  King's  speech — Juxon's 
career — a  model  treasurer — Bishops  and  sport — Albourne  and  John  Juxon — the 
revolution — the  godly  and  the  ungodly — the  Engagement — Rye — Dacre  and 
Stapley — Colonel  Morley — "the  King's  business" — Free-quarter  abolished — 
Rye  and  aliens — Puritan  severity — the  Book  of  Sports — alehouses — the  ob- 
servance of  Sunday — Cavaliers  and  horse-races. 

XIV.  SOME  SUSSEX  MEN        ....    Page  234 

John  Selden — Thomas  May — Henry  Parker — Accepted  Frewen — Thomas 
Comber — Henry  Gage — Thomas  Gage — The  Lunsfords — the  Gorings. 

XV.  WORCESTER  AND  BRIGHTHELMSTONE    .    Page  251 

Charles  II  in  Scotland — invasion  of  England — the  Sussex  Militia — the  battle 
of  Worcester — Charles'  flight  and  wanderings — "William  Jackson  " — Colonel 
Counter  of  Rackton — his  narrative — Wilmot  at  Rackton — Mrs.  Counter — Mr. 
Mansel,  merchant,  of  Chichester — Counter  and  Mansel  at  Brighthelmstone — 
Captain  Tettersall's  barque  chartered — Charles  atHambledon — Thomas  Symons 
— Colonel  Phelips — the  ride  through  Sussex — Captain  Morley  at  Arundel — 
danger  at  Bramber — the  "  George  "  at  Brighthelmstone — Charles  reaches 
Fecamp — Mansel  and  Pepys— the  legend  of  Ovingdean. 


CONTENTS  xiii 

XVI.  THE  SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH 

WAR    ........    Page  264 

The  influence  of  sea  power  on  history — the  Parliament  and  the  fleet — the 
Prince  of  Orange's  views — the  trade  of  London — the»revolt  of  1648 — the 
harbour  of  Rye — trade  with  Dieppe — John  Evelyn  at  Rye  and  Winchelsea — 
Trade  in  iron  and  horses — convoys  for  vessels  with  corn  for  London — pirates  at 
Beachy  Head — William  Key — smuggling — exportation  of  wool — the  North 
Sea  fishery — the  Dutch  war  of  1652 — the  Navigation  Act — English  success — 
Dutch  raids  on  Sussex — the  iron  industry — Thomas  Newbery's  journey  to  the 
foundries — Yalden  of  Blackdown — the  slighting  of  Arundel — gunpowder — ship- 
building— impressment  of  seamen — privateers  in  the  Spanish  war — the  Cat  pink 
— gallant  Captain  Pittock — the  defences  of  Rye. 

XVII.  MAJOR-GENERAL   GOFFE  AND  JOHN 

STAPLEY     .       .       .       .       .       .    Page  282 

Royalist  plots — reduction  of  the  army — a  new  militia — the  Major-Generals — 
William  Goffe — extensive  powers — fresh  imposts  on  Royalists — Commissioners 
"for  securing  the  peace" — Goffe  at  Lewes — John  and  Anthony  Stapley — 
Colonel  Morley's  local  activity — civil  marriages — tobacco  planting — the  militia 
and  its  pay — numbers  reduced — the  Parliament  of  1656 — Morley's  gout — the 
Quakers  in  Sussex — visit  of  George  Fox — prisoners  at  Horsham — Cromwell's 
tolerance — the  "  public  ministry  " — augmentation  of  livings  from  sequestered 
estates — the  plot  of  1658 — Dr.  Hewitt  and  John  Stapley — Sussex  conspirators 
— Stapley  and  Cromwell — an  abject  recantation — the  trial. 

XVIII.  ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION    .        .    Page  304 

Death  and  funeral  of  Cromwell — his  son's  succession  and  failure — Herbert 
Morley  returns  to  politics — his  activity  in  the  House — the  Long  Parliament  re- 
stored— Royalist  plots — measures  of  repression — Arundel,  Chichester,  Cowdray 
— Culpepper  at  Brighthelmstone — Failure  of  the  rising — the  grievances  of  Rye 
— Lambert  and  Morley — Morley's  victory — the  Restoration  in  sight — Evelyn 
and  Morley — Morley  as  hero — the  Restoration — Rewards  and  punishments — 
Sussex  Baronets  created — theOrder  of  the  Royal  Oak — the  fate  of  the  regicides — 
trial  of  Temple  and  Downes — flight  of  Cawley  and  Goffe — Richard  Cromwell 
and  Edward  Ludlow  escape  from  Lewes — the  curtain  falls — what  the  "  Great 
Rebellion  "  achieved. 

APPENDIX  A.  LINKS  WITH  THE  PAST  .  .  Page  325 
APPENDIX  B.  A  FRACAS  AT  LEWES  .  .  Page  326 
INDEX Page  331 


MAPS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

JOHN  ASHBURNHAM  ....        Frontispiece 

From  an  engraving  by  R.  Graves  of  the  portrait  by 
Daniel  Mytens;  from  John  Ashburnham's  Narrative  and 
Vindication.  London,  1830. 

MAP  SHOWING  THE  REPRESENTATION  OF  SUSSEX 
IN  THE  LONG  PARLIAMENT        .       .       .       .16 

GEORGE  GORING 37 

After  the  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  at  Petworth ;  from  Lodge's 
Portraits. 

CHICHESTER  IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY       .      52 

From  Speed's  Atlas,  1610. 

MAP  OF  WEST  SUSSEX,  ILLUSTRATING  THE  OPERA- 
TIONS OF  1643 71 

ARUNDEL 87 

From  the  print  by  Hollar. 

FACSIMILE  OF  RECEIPT  FOR  SIR  WILLIAM  CAM- 
PION'S FINE 134 

In  the  possession  of  Colonel  Campion. 

SIR  WILLIAM  WALLER 151 

From  the  portrait  by  Lely  at  Goodwood  House. 

FACSIMILE    OF    LETTER  OF  COLONEL  HERBERT 
MORLEY  TO  SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION  .        .       .191 

FACSIMILE    OF    LETTER  OF  COLONEL  HERBERT 
MORLEY  TO  SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION  .        .        .193 

The  originals  of  the  above  are  in   the  possession  of 
Colonel  Campion. 


xvi  MAPS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

BISHOP  JUXON 220 

From  the  portrait  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

JOHN  SELDEN 234 

After  the  portrait  by  Daniel  Mytens  in  the  Bodleian 
Library;  from  Lodge's  Portraits. 

SIR  THOMAS  LUNSFORD 244 

From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum. 

CHARLES  II  AT  THE  AGE  OF  NINETEEN   .       ,       .    257 

From  Tragicum  Theatrum,  1649. 


LIST  OF  SUBSCRIBERS 

ALABONE,  Arthur,  Barclay's  Bank,  Preston,  Brighton. 
ALEXANDER,  W.  C.,  Aubrey  House,  Campden  Hill,  London,  W. 
ALLEN,  E.  Heron,  F.L.S.,  Large  Acres,  Selsey. 
ASHBURNHAM,  The  Right  Hon.  the  Earl  of,  Ashburnham  Place, 

Battle. 

ATLAY,  J.  B.,  F.S.A.,  8,  Adelphi  Terrace,  Strand,  London,  W.C. 
ATTREE,  C.  J.,  n,  East  Street,  Horsham. 
ATTREE,  Colonel  F.  W.  T.,  F.S.A.,  late  R.E.,  53,  Albert  Bridge 

Road,  London,  S.W. 

BAGGALLAY,  Rev.  F.,  The  Rectory,  Pulborough. 

BALLINGER,  John,  M.A.,  Librarian,  National  Library  of  Wales, 

Aberystwyth. 

BARBER,  Charles  H.,  24,  St.  Ann  Street,  Manchester. 
BARHAM,  Sir  George,  Snape,  Wadhurst. 
BECK,  John  Lister,  Duncan's  Farm,  Billingshurst. 
BENETT-STANFORD,  Captain  John,  Hatch  House,  Tisbury,  Wilts. 
BEVAN,  R.  A.,  Horsgate,  Cuckfield. 
BEVES,  E.  L.,  117,  Church  Street,  Brighton. 
BIRD,  W.  B.  M.,  Eartham,  Chichester. 
BIRKETT,  Daniel  M.,  Leigh  Holme,  Bexhill. 
BLABER,  William  H.,  34,  Cromwell  Road,  Hove. 
BLAKER,  Ernest  H.,  North  Gate,  Chichester. 
BLAKER,  Reginald,  6,  Wallands  Crescent,  Lewes. 
BORRADAILE,  Charles,  3,  Norfolk  Terrace,  Brighton. 
BORRER,  W.,  Pakyns  Manor,  Hurstpierpoint. 
BOWEN,  Rev.  Canon,  R.D.,  F.S.A.,  Monkton  Priory,  Pembroke. 
BOWES,  R.  Kirksby,  Littlehampton. 
BREACH,  W.  Powell,  Newham,  Steyning. 

BRIGHTON  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  (Henry  D.  Roberts,  Director).  (Two.) 
BURT,  George,  Castle  Hill,  Rotherfield. 

b 


xviii  LIST  OF  SUBSCRIBERS 

BUTT,  Charles  A.,  Wilbury,  Beach  Road,  Littlehampton. 
BUXTON,  Mrs.  Sydney,  Newtimber  Place,  Hassocks. 


CAMPBELL,  Captain  Arthur,  30,  Clarges  Street,  London,  W. 

CAMPION,  Colonel,  C.B.,  Danny,  Hassocks. 

CARSON,  The   Right  Hon.  Sir  E.  H.,  K.C.,  M.P.,  Northgate, 

Rottingdean. 

CAVE,  Charles  J.  P.,  Ditcham  Park,  Petersfield. 
CHADWYCK-HEALEY,  Sir  Charles  E.  H.,  K.C.B.,  Wyphurst, 

Cranleigh,  Surrey. 
CHAMPNEYS,  Sir    Francis,    Bart.,   M.D.,   F.R.C.P.,   Littlemead, 

Nutley. 
CHARRINGTON,  Harry  Will.,  Saint  Helen's,  23,  Park  Crescent, 

Brighton. 
CHICHESTER,    The    Very    Rev.    the    Dean   of,    The    Deanery, 

Chichester. 

CHRISTIE,  G.  R.,  The  Camp,  Steep,  Petersfield. 
CLARKE,  C.,  Caxton  House,  Hayward's  Heath. 
CLARKE,  Somers,  F.S.A.,  48,  Albert  Gate,  Kensington  Gore, 

London,  S.W. 

CLAYTON,  C.  E.,  Holmbush,  Henfield. 
COKE-BURNELL,  T.,  1 8,  Preston  Park  Avenue,  Brighton. 
COLVIN,  Lt.-Colonel  F.  F.,  Morley,  Henfield.   (Two.) 
COMBER,  John,  High  Steep,  Jarvis  Brook. 
COMBER,  J.  M.,  Shoreham-by-Sea. 
COMBRIDGE,  S.,  56,  Church  Road,  Hove. 
COURTHOPE,  F.  G.,  Southover,  Lewes. 
COURTHOPE,  George  J.,  Whiligh. 
COURTHOPE,  W.  J.,  C.B.,  The  Lodge,  Wadhurst. 
CRAWFURD,  Robert  Payne,  Baidland,  Seaford,  and  East  Grin- 
stead. 

CRIPPS,  Albert  Edward,  Broomfields,  Sutton  Lane,  Chiswick. 
CRIPPS,  W.  G.,  Camden  Park,  Tunbridge  Wells. 
CRIPPS,  W.  T.,  19,  Lauriston  Road,  Preston,  Brighton. 
CUCKFIELD  PUBLIC  LIBRARY,  Cuckfield. 
CUNLIFFE,  The  Hon.  Lady,  River,  Tillington,  Petworth. 
CURTIS,  Jas.,  F.S.A.,  Glenburn,  Worcester  Road,  Sutton,  Surrey. 
CURWEN,  Mrs.  Chaloner,  Shorne  Hill,  Totton,  Hants. 
CURWEN,  Eldred,  Withdeane  Court,  Brighton. 


LIST  OF  SUBSCRIBERS  xix 

DAVEY,  Rev.  Chancellor  H.  M.,  F.S. A.,  Cawley  Priory,  Chichester. 

DAY,  Alfred  J.,  Fontwell,  Arundel. 

DEACON,  J.  L.,  F.R.Hist.S.,  F.S.Sc.,  Sladen  House,  Rye. 

DEEDES,  Rev.  Prebendary  C.,  32,  Little  London,  Chichester. 

DOWNING,  W.  H.,  Aldine  Cottage,  Olton,  Birmingham. 

DOWNS,  Mrs.,  Hamsey  Cottage,  Seaford. 

DREWITT,  C.  J.,  Drayton  House,  Chichester. 

EASTBOURNE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  (J.  H.  Hardcastle,  Librarian). 
EVERSHED,  Henry  G.,  Friarscourt,  Shoreham-by-Sea. 
EVERY,  John  H.,  The  Croft,  Lewes. 

FARNCOMBE,  Joseph,  Saltwood,  Spencer  Road,  Eastbourne. 
FLETCHER,  C.  R.  L,  22,  Norham  Gardens,  Oxford.  (Two.) 
FLETCHER,  W.  H.  B.,  Aldwick  Manor,  Bognor. 
FRESHFIELD,  Douglas  W.,  Wych  Cross  Place,  Forest  Row. 
FREWEN,  Colonel,  Brickwall,  Northiam. 
FREWEN,  Miss,  44,  Greycoat  Gardens,  Westminster,  S.W. 
FROST,  Miss  Marian,  Public  Library,  Worthing.    (Two.) 
FULLER,  Rev.  A.,  7,  Sydenham  Hill,  London,  S.E. 

GAGE,  The  Right  Hon.  Viscount,  Firle,  Lewes. 

GATES,     Ferdinand     Chasemore,     Nyetimber,     Shelley     Road, 

Worthing. 

GEERE,  Edward,  Mayor  of  Brighton,  Burmah  Lodge,  Preston. 
GILBERT  AND  FIELD,  LTD.,  67,  Moorgate  Street,  London,  E.G. 
GILKES,  J.  Harry,  Wychcote,  Dyke  Road  Avenue,  Patcham. 
GILLETT,  W.,  42,  Market  Street,  Brighton. 
GODFREE,  G.  S.,  23,  Goldsmid  Road,  Brighton.   (Two.) 
GoooLPHiN-OsBORNE,  Lady  D'Arcy,  Churchill,  Hemel  Hemsted, 

Herts. 

GRANGE,  Colonel  E.  L.,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  F.S.A.,  Great  Grimsby. 
GRANTHAM,  The  Hon.  Sir  William,  Barcombe  Place,  Lewes. 
GRAVES,  A.  F.,  9,  North  Street  Quadrant,  Brighton. 
GRAY,  W.  Anstruther,  Kilmany,  Fife,  N.B. 
GREENWOOD,  J.  A.,  Funtington  House,  Chichester. 
GREG,  Thomas,  F.S.A.,  Coles,  Buntingford,  Herts. 
GREGORY,  H.  E.,  Quintain  House,  Offham,  Kent. 
GUNTER,  Richard,  Old  House,  East  Grinstead. 
GWYNNE,  J.  E.  A.,  F.S.A.,  Folkington  Manor,  Polegate. 


xx  LIST  OF  SUBSCRIBERS 

HALL,  A.  J.,  33,  Vernon  Terrace,  Brighton. 

HALL,  D.  B.,  M.P.,  Burton  Park,  Petworth. 

HAMPTON,  William,  Home  Farm,  Withdeane,  Brighton. 

HANKEY,  C.  T.  A.,  Templecrone,  East  Grinstead. 

HAWES,  Edward,  Pallant  House,  Chichester. 

HENDERSON,  Mrs.,  Sedgwick  Park,  Horsham. 

HENTY,  Colonel  Arthur,  Chestham  Park,  Henfield. 

HILL,  Miss  R.  M.,  Huntsland,  Crawley  Down. 

HOBBS,  James,  13,  Highdown  Road,  Dyke  Road,  Brighton. 

HOLLIST,  Anthony  C.,  Highbuilding,  Fernhurst,  Haslemere. 

HOLMES,  Arthur,  Arundel. 

HOLMES,  G.  P.,  The  Chalet,  Felpham,  Bognor.   (Two.) 

HOUNSOM,  Wm.  A.,  41,  New  Church  Road,  Brighton.   (Two.) 

HOVE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY,  J.  W.  Lister,  Librarian. 

HUDSON,  Rev.  W.,  F.S.A.,   65,   Ashley  Gardens,  Westminster, 

London,  S.W. 

HURST,  A.  R.,  Horsham  Park,  Horsham.   (Two.) 
HUSEY-HUNT,  J.  H.,  Lewes. 

HUTCHINSON,  Rev.  H.,  Tisbury  Vicarage,  Salisbury. 
HUTH,  Edward,  Wykehurst  Park,  Hayward's  Heath. 
HUTH,  Mrs.  Philip,  Riverhall,  Wadhurst. 

JACKSON,  Major  E.  S.,  North  Cheriton,  Templecombe. 
JAMES,  William,  C.V.O.,  West  Dean  Park,  Chichester. 
JENNINGS,  A.  O.,  LL.B.,  n,  Adelaide  Crescent,  Hove. 
JENNISON,  Major  H.  G.  W.,  171,  Preston  Drove,  Brighton. 
JOHN  RYLANDS  LIBRARY,  THE,  Manchester  (H.  Guppy,  M.A., 
Librarian). 

KELLY,  W.  W.,  Aldingbourne,  Chichester. 
KEMP,  Captain  W.,  Lyminster  House,  Arundel. 
KITCHIN,  The  Very  Rev.  G.  W.,  D.D.,  Deanery,  Durham. 

LAMB,  E.,  M.P.,  Borden  Wood,  Liphook,  Hants  (per  Kenneth 
Mackenzie,  9,  Beaconsfield  Terrace  Road,  West  Kensington). 
LANE,  John,  Vigo  Street,  London,  W. 
LANGLEY,  J.  N.,  Hedgerly  Lodge,  Cambridge. 
LAYTON,  John,  Darvell  Hall,  Robertsbridge. 
LEE,  Augustus  Charles,  56,  Montpelier  Road,  Brighton. 
LEES,  H.  Ernest,  Northfield,  Langton  Green,  Kent. 


LIST  OF  SUBSCRIBERS  xxi 

LEWES,  The  Rt.  Rev.  the  Bishop  of,  The  Vicarage,  Hove. 
LEWIN,  W.  H.,  South  Road,  Preston,  Brighton. 
LISTER,  Henry  John,  The  Field  House,  Crowborough. 
LIVESAY,  G.  H.  P.,  Woodleigh,  Worthing. 
LLOYD,  John,  Astwick  Manor,  Hatfield,  Herts. 
LODER,  Gerald  W.  E.,  F.S.A.,  Wakehurst  Place,  Ardingly. 
LUCAS,  C.  J.,  Warnham  Court,  Horsham. 

MABERLY,  Miss,  Mytten,  Cuckfield,  Hayward's  Heath. 

MACFARLANE,  J.  B.,  49,  East  Street,  Brighton. 

MCKELLAR,    Surgeon-General    E.,    Woodleigh,    Preston    Park, 

Brighton. 

MALDEN,  H.  M.  S.,  Henley  House,  Frant. 

MARCH,  Fredk.  C.,  9,  Cornwall  Gardens,  Preston  Park,  Brighton. 
MARGESSON,  Major  E.  W.,  Findon  Place,  Worthing. 
MARTYN,  W.  E.,  2,  Temple  Gardens,  London,  E.G. 
MAYHEWE,  Arthur,  D.L.,  Wyfolds,  Eastbourne. 
MEE,  Rev.  J.  H.,  The  Chantry,  Westbourne,  Emsworth. 
MERRIFIELD,  F.,  14,  Clifton  Terrace,  Brighton. 
MITCHELL,  G.  S.,  Broadbridge  Place,  Horsham. 
MITCHELL,  Reginald  F.,  Lyminster  Lodge,  Arundel. 
MITCHELL,  W.  Woods,  Maltravers  House,  Arundel. 
MONK,  Mrs.,  St.  Anne's,  Lewes. 
MONTGOMERIE,  D.  H.,  69,   Bedford  Gardens,   Campden   Hill, 

London,  W. 

MOOR,  Rev.  Prebendary,  Preston  Vicarage,  Brighton. 
MURRAY,  T.  Douglas,  Iver  Place,  Iver,  Bucks. 

NEWGASS,  Mrs.,  Shernfold  Park,  Frant. 

NEWINGTON,  Mrs.  Campbell,  The  Holme,  Inner  Circle,  Regent's 

Park,  London,  N.W. 
NEWLANDS,  The  Right  Hon.  Lord,  Barrowfield  Lodge,  Brighton. 

(Two.) 

NICHOLSON,  Arthur,  30,  Brunswick  Square,  Brighton. 
NICHOLSON,  Wm.  Edward,  Lewes. 
NORFOLK,  His  Grace  the  Duke  of,  E.M.,  K.G.,  Arundel  Castle. 

(Two.) 

NORMAN,  Rev.  S.  J.,  M.A.,  F.R.G.S.,  South  Lawn,  Chichester. 
NORTON,  Rev.  F.  C.,  Ditchling  Vicarage,  Hassocks. 


xxii  LIST  OF  SUBSCRIBERS 

OLIVER,  Mrs.,  26,  Brunswick  Terrace,  Brighton. 
OSBORNE,  Sir  Francis,  Bart.,  The  Grange,  Framfield. 

PAKENHAM,  The  Hon.  Lady,  Bernhurst  House,  Hurst  Green. 
PEACH,  Charles  Stanley,  Abingworth,  Thakeham. 
PEMBERTON,  C.  S.,  24,  Brunswick  Terrace,  Hove. 
PENNEY,    Norman,    F.S.A.,    Devonshire    House,    Bishopsgate, 

London,  E.G. 
PENNEY,    Sidney    Rickman,    Larkbarrow,    Dyke    Road    Drive, 

Brighton. 

PHILCOX,  Miss,  Ashburnham,  Patcham. 
PLUMMER,  H.,  Lyntonville,  Hayward's  Heath. 
PONSONBY,  Mrs.  J.  H.,  15,  Chesham  Place,  London,  S.W. 
POPLEY,  Wm.  Hulbert,  13,  Pavilion  Buildings,  Brighton. 
PORTEOUS,  Mrs.,  25,  Stanhope  Gardens,  London,  S.W. 

RALLI,  Mrs.  Stephen,  St.  Catherine's  Lodge,  Hove. 
RANDALL,  Mrs.,  Cocking  Rectory,  Midhurst. 
RAWLINSON,  George,  Roseneath,  Hurstpierpoint. 
RECKITT,  Mrs.  Arthur  B.,  Kenmore,  St.  Leonard's-on-Sea.  (Two.) 
REEVE,  Kingsworth,  Meryon  House,  Rye. 
RENDELL,  Rev.  Canon,  Eydon  Rectory,  Byfield,  Northants. 
RENSHAW,  Walter  C.,  K.C.,  Sandrocks,  Hayward's  Heath. 
RENTON,  J.  Hall,  Rowfield  Grange,  Billingshurst. 
RICHARDSON,  David,  The  Gables,  Elswick,  Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
RICHMOND  AND  GORDON,  His  Grace  the  Duke  of,  K.G.,  Good- 
wood, Chichester.   (Two.) 

RIDSDALE,  E.  A.,  7,  Queen's  Gate  Gardens,  London,  S.W. 
ROBERTS,  Henry  D.,  35,  Florence  Road,  Brighton. 
ROUND,  J.  Horace,  LL.D.,  15,  Brunswick  Terrace,  Hove. 
ROYAL  INSTITUTION  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

SALZMANN,  L.  F.,  Hope  Park,  Bromley,  Kent. 
SAMPSON,  Lt.-Col.  Dudley,  D.L.,  Buxshalls,  Lindfield. 
SANDEMAN,  Lt.-Col.  J.  G.,  M.V.O.,  F.S.A.,  Whin-Hurst,  Hayling 

Island,  Havant. 

SANDS,  Harold,  F.S.A.,  Bernersmede,  Carlisle  Road,  Eastbourne. 
SAYER-MILWARD,  Rev.  W.  C.,  Fairlight  Place,  Ore. 
SCARR,  George,  Beach  House,  Radcliffe,  Lancashire. 
SCOTT,  C.  H.,  Heaton  Mersey,  Manchester. 


LIST  OF  SUBSCRIBERS  xxiii 

SCULL,  W.  D.,  B.A.,  The  Pines,  Crowborough  Beacon. 

SHIELL,  A.  G.,  St.  Dennis,  Withdeane. 

SIGNET  LIBRARY,  The,  Edinburgh  (John  Minto,  M.A.,  Librarian). 

SIMEON,  Rev.  J.  P.,  The  Vicarage,  Patcham. 

SLADE,  Edward  F.,  Ham  brook  Grange,  Emsworth. 

SMITH,  Alpheus,  Glendale,  14,  Leigham  Vale,  Streatham,  S.W. 

SMITH,  R.  Cunliffe,  Glenleigh  House,  Hankham,  Pevensey. 

SMITH,  Wm.  J.,  41-43,  North  Street,  Brighton.   (Three.) 

SMITHERS,  H.  W.,  9,  Eaton  Gardens,  Hove. 

SNEWIN,  Hubt.  E.,  Hawthorndene,  Worthing. 

STANDEN,  Gilbert,  34,  Henrietta  Street,  Covent  Garden,  London. 

STEVENS,  F.  Bentham,  LL.B.,  High  Street,  Lewes. 

STEWART,  Edward,  Brook  House,  East  Grinstead. 

STREATFEILD,  R.  J.,  The  Rocks,  Uckfield. 

SUSSEX  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  SOCIETY,  Barbican  House,  Lewes. 

THOMAS,  D.  C.,  21,  Second  Avenue,  Hove.  (Three.) 
THOMAS,  Mrs.,  21,  Second  Avenue,  Hove.  (Three.) 
THOMAS,  Walter  L.,  7,  More's  Garden,  Cheyne  Walk,  London, 

S.W. 

TOLLEMACHE,  Hon.  Mrs.  R.,  10,  Brunswick  Terrace,  Hove. 
TREDGOLD,  Miss,  12,  Holland  Road,  Kensington,  London,  W. 
TREE,  B.  H.  W.,  15,  St.  Margaret's  Road,  St.  Leonard's-on-Sea. 
TURNOUR-FETHERSTONHAUGH,  Lt.-Col.  the  Hon.  K.,  Up-park, 

Petersfield. 

WAHL,  Mrs.  R.  F.,  i,  Pembridge  Square,  Bayswater,  London. 

WEDGWOOD,  Rowland  H.,  Slindon,  Arundel. 

WILLETT,  Mrs.,  St.  Andrew's,  Seaford. 

WINCHILSEA  AND  NOTTINGHAM,  The  Right  Hon.  the  Earl  of, 

Harlech,  Merioneth. 

WOOLLAN,  Joseph  Henry,  42,  South  Park  Road,  Wimbledon. 
WYATT,  Rev.  T.  G.,  The  Vicarage,  Hay  ward's  Heath. 
WYNDHAM,  Colonel  C.  J.,  Heathfield  Lodge,  Midhurst. 
WYNDHAM,  Hon.  Percy,  Clouds,  East  Knoyle,  Salisbury. 

YOUNG,  Rev.  W.  E.  A.,  Pyecombe  Rectory,  Hassocks. 


Sussex  in  the  Great  Civil  War  and 
the  Interregnum  1642-1660 

CHAPTER  I 

BEFORE  THE  WAR 

HE  who  sets  out  to  write  the  history  of  his  county  in  a 
period  of  great  national  disturbance  will  be  faced  ere 
he  has  advanced  far  by  the  difficulty  of  delimiting  his  fron- 
tier. For  ordinary  administrative  purposes,  civil  or  military, 
a  county  may  be  a  satisfactory  unit,  but  county  boundaries 
mean  nothing  to  soldiers  in  the  field;  their  proceedings 
are  governed  by  other  considerations.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
surprising  to  find  that  the  military  operations,  not  in  them- 
selves very  considerable,  which  took  place  in  Sussex  during 
the  Civil  War,  were  closely  interwoven  with  similar  opera- 
tions in  the  adjoining  counties  of  Hampshire,  Surrey,  and 
Kent.  And  no  less  than  the  movements  of  the  armies  were 
the  motions  and  aspirations  of  the  civil  population  deter- 
mined by  what  was  happening  elsewhere.  It  is  my  purpose, 
while  bearing  in  mind  this  relation  to  the  main  drift  of 
events,  to  set  forth  as  far  as  may  be  in  ordered  sequence 
the  chief  occurrences  within  the  county,  to  glance  at  the 
state  of  its  inhabitants  at  the  time,  and  now  and  then  to 
follow  the  fortunes  of  Sussex  men  who  were  playing  their 
part  upon  a  wider  stage. 

One  advantage  the  historian  of  to-day  enjoys.  It  is  no 
longer  expected  that  he  should  take  a  side.  He  need  not 
speak  of  "  rebels  "  or  "  malignants,"  and  if  he  uses  the  term 

B 


2         SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

"  regicide,"  it  will  be  not  as  a  stigma  of  reproach,  but  as  a 
convenient  label.  The  conventional  idea  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  born  on  the  day  when  Charles  faced  the  block 
with  placid  courage,  fostered  by  the  sycophantic  histories 
of  the  Restoration  and  by  the  attitude  of  the  Church,  and 
kept  alive  in  romantic  minds  by  the  pathos  which  attaches 
to  a  fallen  dynasty — the  idea  that  the  King  was  almost  a 
demi-god  and  wholly  a  martyr,  and  that  Cromwell  and  his 
associates  were  a  set  of  bloodthirsty  criminals,  has  not 
survived  the  investigations  of  a  scientific  age.  The  re- 
action of  the  nineteenth  century  went  too  far.  The 
"  usurper "  found  a  strange  medley  of  worshippers.  He 
was  hailed  alike  as  hero  by  the  advocates  of  resolute 
government,  and  as  saint  by  peace-at-any-price  dissenters. 
One  party  recalled  with  envy  his  "  settlement "  of  the 
Irish  question;  the  other  with  admiration  that  he  helped  to 
abolish  bishops  and  brought  a  king  to  trial.  Then  at 
length  the  truth  emerged.  The  painstaking,  emotionless, 
scientific  historian,  concerned  to  co-ordinate  facts  rather 
than  to  bolster  up  a  parti  pris,  in  the  full  maturity  of  his 
unrivalled  knowledge  summed  up  the  Civil  War,  not  as  the 
licentious  uprising  of  ill-restrained  ambition  against  divinely 
constituted  sovereignty,  but  as  "  rendered  inevitable  by  the 
inadequacy  of  the  intellectual  methods  of  the  day  to  effect 
a  reconciliation  between  opposing  moral  forces  which 
derived  their  strength  from  the  past  development  of  the 
nation  "  ; x  and  he  pronounced  Cromwell  to  have  been  "  no 
divinely  inspired  hero,  indeed,  or  faultless  monster,  but  a 
brave  honourable  man,  striving,  according  to  his  lights,  to 
lead  his  countrymen  into  the  paths  of  peace  and  god- 
liness." * 

And  although  the  echoes  of  that  great  convulsion  have 
reverberated  almost  until  our  own  time,  the  conditions  of 
our  existence  to-day  are  too  far  divergent  to  colour,  at  all 

1  S.  R.  Gardiner,  History  of  the  Great  Civil  War,  ch.  i. 

2  Ibid.    Preface  to  the  Second  Edition. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  3 

reasonably,  our  views  of  it.  We  may  feel  some  sympathy 
for  the  weak,  if  well-meaning,  king,  succeeding  to  the  evil 
heritage  of  his  father's  "  king-craft "  and  bad  counsellors, 
and  driven  to  desperate  courses  by  his  imperious  wife ; 1 
we  may  respect  the  persistence  with  which  he  maintained 
"  his  own  conception  of  government,  that  of  a  wise  prince 
constantly  interfering  to  check  the  madness  of  the  people," 2 
even  if  the  duplicity  of  his  methods  repels  us,  and  we 
realize  that  his  "  habitual  perfidy  "  (in  Macaulay's  phrase) 
made  it  impossible  for  men  once  strenuously  in  opposition 
to  come  to  any  terms  which  they  could  confidently  believe 
to  be  binding  on  him;  we  may  admire  his  patience  in 
adversity,  and  especially  the  courage  and  dignity  with 
which  he  met  his  end ;  but  into  the  ideas  and,  especially, 
the  religious  enthusiasms  of  his  opponents,  few  of  us  are 
able  to-day  to  enter.  Politically  we  live  under  something 
like  the  conditions  for  which  at  the  beginning  of  the  con- 
test they  were  striving ;  in  questions  of  faith  and  of  reli- 
gious organization  the  modern  world  is  taking  a  wholly 
different  line  from  theirs;  for  most  of  us  their  aspirations 
and  their  difficulties  have  little  meaning;  their  very  lan- 
guage is  commonly  distasteful  to  us. 

With  the  decisive  battles  of  Hastings  and  Lewes  upon 
its  records,  the  county  of  Sussex  must  ever  hold  a  foremost 
place  in  English  military  history.  But  owing  partly  to 
its  geographical  position,  partly  to  the  general  attitude 
of  its  inhabitants,  it  was  left  out  of  the  main  stream  of 
contention  in  the  great  Civil  War.  Its  cathedral  of  Chi- 
chester  indeed  suffered  severely,  its  feudal  castle  of  Arundel 
was  partly  destroyed,  some  of  its  great  houses  were  battered, 
and  it  may  be  that  some  of  its  iron  forges  were  damaged ; 
apart  from  these  the  county  endured  little  injury  from  the 
ravages  of  war.  Yet  the  drain  of  able-bodied  men,  the 

1  "  Go,  you  coward,  and  pull  out  those  rogues  by  the  ears,"  she 
said,  to  urge  him  to  attempt  the  arrest  of  the  five  members. 
a  Gardiner,  ch.  Ixxi. 


4         SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

fines  and  sequestrations  which  crippled  the  Royalist  gentry, 
and  the  unprecedented  taxation  which  fell  heavily  on  all 
classes  must  have  had  a  very  depressing  effect  on  the 
county's  well  being  at  the  time. 

The  historian  Buckle,1  with  his  own  theories  to  support, 
has  represented  the  Civil  War  as  a  war  of  classes.  It  was 
certainly  not  so  in  its  inception;  it  was  rather  a  war  of 
temperaments.  If  the  majority  of  the  nobility  and  gentry 
was  for  the  King,  and  the  majority  of  the  yeomanry  and 
townsfolk  for  the  Parliament,  there  was  a  great  and  power- 
ful minority  in  each  class ;  the  political  cleft  was  far  from 
coinciding  accurately  with  the  social  cleft.2  Yet  it  is  also 
true  that  as  time  wore  on  the  able  men  who  rose  from  the 
ranks  of  the  lesser  gentry  and  the  commercial  classes  on 
the  parliamentary  side  pushed  out  the  aristocratic  leaders 
who  owed  their  position  to  their  birth;  and  it  may  be 
remarked  that  the  flood-tide  of  parliamentary  success  was 
coincident  with  the  rise  of  these  new  men. 

In  Sussex  the  dividing  line  was  certainly  not  social.  Of 
the  great  nobles,  Thomas,  Earl  of  Arundel,  was  on  the 
Royalist  side,  but  he  resided  abroad,  busy  with  the  col- 
lection of  works  of  art,  and  took  no  part  in  the  contest. 
Against  him  may  fairly  be  set  Algernon  Percy,  Earl  of 
Northumberland,  the  lord  of  Petworth,  "  the  proudest  man 
alive,"3  who  held  high  office  under  the  Parliament.  Of  the 
gentry,  especially  in  West  Sussex,  numerous  leading 
families,  some  of  them  Catholic,  took  the  King's  part; 
among  them  may  be  named  the  Gages,  the  Gorings  of 
Danny,  the  Bishops,  the  Lunsfords,  the  Coverts,  the 
Culpeppers,  the  Fords,  the  Bowyers,  May  of  Rawmere,  the 
Morleys  of  Halnaker,  the  Ashburnhams,  the  Carylls,  and 
the  Lewknors.  It  is  noticeable  that  some  of  these,  such  as 
the  Bowyers,  the  Mays,  and  the  Morleys  (to  be  distin- 
guished from  the  Morleys  of  Glynde),  were  of  the  newer 

1  History  of  Civilization  in  England,  vol.  ii,  ch.  iii. 

2  See  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  i.  3  Clarendon. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  5 

class  of  gentry,  who  had  purchased  land  with  the  profits  of 
commerce  or  the  law,  and,  as  may  be  frequently  observed 
in  such  cases,  were  perhaps  especially  inclined  to  take 
what  seemed  the  more  aristocratic  side.  In  the  parlia- 
mentary ranks  will  be  found  names  no  less  eminent  for 
descent  or  position  in  the  county.  The  Pelhams,  the 
Eversfields,  the  Gorings  of  Burton,  the  Gratwicks,  the 
Burrells,  Colonel  Morley  of  Glynde,  Sir  John  Trevor,  Hay 
of  Glyndbourne,  Sir  Herbert  Springate,  Anthony  Stapley 
of  Patcham,  Thomas  Middleton  of  Hills  Place,  William 
and  Thomas  Michelbourne,  Peter  Courthope,  Henry 
Shelley,  Anthony  Shirley  of  Preston — these  were  among 
the  Sussex  gentry  who,  being  members  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, took  the  Covenant,  or  at  some  time  were  in  the 
military  or  civil  service  of  the  Parliament.  And  of  many 
of  the  leading  families  some  members  took  one  side,  and 
some  the  other. 

If  the  gentry  were  divided,  the  burgesses,  the  yeomanry, 
and  the  inhabitants  generally  were  for  the  Parliament,  as 
in  the  other  counties  of  the  south-east  and  east.  Sussex 
especially  had  become  very  Puritan,1  and  it  may  be  that 
the  slow,  conservative,  independent  character  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  population  inclined  it  to  view  political  differences 
from  a  severely  practical  standpoint.  The  romantic  attach- 
ment to  a  royal  house,  regardless  of  its  merits  or  faults, 
especially  in  time  of  misfortune,  which  prevailed  in  the 
more  impressionable  west,  had  no  great  force  in  hard- 
headed  Sussex. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  forest  covered  a  great  part  of 
Sussex,  which  is  still  one  of  the  most  thickly  timbered 
counties  in  England.  A  contemporary  writer2  speaks  of 
the  weald  as  having  formerly  been  a  most  unfruitful 
wilderness,  and  unfitted  either  for  pasture  or  tillage  until 
it  be  "  holpen  by  some  manner  of  comfort,  as  dung,  marie, 

1  See  ch.  ii.  a  Gervase  Markham. 


6         SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

fresh  earth,  fodder,  ashes  or  such  other  refreshments."  In 
his  day  and  for  long  after  agriculture  was  in  a  backward 
state,  the  fields  small,  badly  drained,  and  surrounded  by 
woods  or  "  shaws,"  which  increased  the  general  dampness 
of  the  county.  These  conditions  and  the  exceeding  badness 
of  the  Sussex  roads  made  military  operations  within  the 
county  very  difficult.  It  was  only  a  hard  and  prolonged 
frost  which  enabled  both  Hopton  and  Waller  to  march 
considerable  armies  with  great  rapidity  to  Arundel  in 
December,  1643;  and  later,  the  Parliament  declined  to 
demolish  certain  great  houses  in  the  county,  which  it  was 
feared  might  be  seized  by  the  Royalists,  on  the  ground  that 
their  situation  would  be  their  best  defence. 

The  usual  condition  of  the  roads  doubtless  preserved  the 
county  from  a  very  active  share  in  the  operations  of  the 
war.  Their  deficiencies  at  this  time  and  long  after  have 
been  the  theme  of  many  writers.  In  the  spring  of  1690 
Lord  Chancellor  Cowper,  then  a  barrister  on  the  Home 
Circuit,  wrote  to  his  wife  from  Kingston-on-Thames 
excusing  himself  for  not  having  written  to  her  from  Hors- 
ham,  since  from  that  place  letters  had  to  be  sent  six  miles 
to  meet  the  post :  "  I  write  to  you  from  this  place  as  soon 
as  I  arrive  to  tell  you  I  have  come  off  without  hurt,  both 
in  my  going  and  return  through  Sussex  ways,  which  are 
bad  and  ruinous  beyond  imagination.  I  vow  'tis  a  melan- 
choly consideration  that  mankind  will  inhabit  such  a  heap 
of  dirt  for  a  poor  livelihood.  The  county  is  a  sink  of  about 
fourteen  miles  broad  which  receives  all  the  water  that  falls 
from  two  long  ranges  of  hills  on  both  sides  of  it;  and  not 
being  furnished  with  convenient  draining,  is  kept  moist 
and  soft  by  the  water  till  the  middle  of  a  dry  summer, 
which  is  only  able  to  make  it  tolerable  to  ride  for  a  short 
time."  l  Even  in  the  eighteenth  century  such  was  the  con- 
dition of  Sussex  roads  and  Sussex  civilization,  that  the 

1  Lord  Campbell's  Life  of  Lord  Chancellor  Cowper,  p.  267. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  7 

judges  in  the  Spring  Circuits  dared  venture  no  farther  into 
the  county  than  the  border  towns  of  Horsham  and  East 
Grinstead  to  hold  their  assizes.1  A  practical  Sussex  lady, 
Judith,  widow  of  Sir  Richard  Shirley  of  Preston,  who  had 
remarried  a  judge  in  London,  in  her  will  dated  loth  January 
1728,  expressed  a  wish  "  to  be  buried  at  Preston  if  I  die  at 
such  time  of  the  year  as  the  roads  thereto  are  passable, 
else  where  my  executors  think  fit."  Fortunately  she  died 
in  the  month  of  June,  and  her  wish  was  carried  out.2  The 
learned  pedant,  Dr.  John  Burton,  who  wrote  an  account  in 
Greek  and  Latin  of  his  journey  into  Sussex  in  1751,  was 
anything  but  complimentary  to  the  county  and  its  in- 
habitants: "  Why  is  it  that  the  oxen,  the  swine,  the  women 
and  all  other  animals  are  so  long-legged  in  Sussex?  May 
it  be  from  the  difficulty  of  pulling  the  feet  out  of  so  much 
mud  by  the  strength  of  the  ankle,  that  the  muscles  get 
stretched  as  it  were  and  the  bones  lengthened?"  He  com- 
plains that  the  moment  he  left  the  old  Roman  causeway  of 
Stane  Street  he  "  fell  immediately  upon  all  that  was  most 
bad,  upon  a  land  desolate  and  muddy,  whether  inhabited 
by  men  or  beasts  a  stranger  could  not  easily  distinguish, 
and  upon  roads  which  were,  to  explain  concisely  what  is 
most  abominable,  Sussexian." 3 

Sussex  was  doubtless  regarded  by  Londoners  as  a  savage 
and  outlandish  county.  Their  flesh  was  made  to  creep  by 
such  tales  as  the  following  of  the  existence  of  uncanny 
monsters  in  its  purlieus:  "True  and  Wonderful.  A  dis- 
course relating  to  a  strange  and  monstrous  Serpent  (or 
Dragon)  lately  discovered  and  yet  living  to  the  great 
Annoyance  and  divers  Slaughters  both  of  Men  and  Cattell, 
by  his  strong  and  violent  Poyson:  In  Sussex,  two  miles 
from  Horsam,  in  a  Woode  called  St.  Leonard's  Forrest,  and 
thirtie  miles  from  London,  this  present  Month  of  August, 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xi,  182. 

'2  Stemmata  Shirleiana,  2nd  ed.,  1873,  p.  314. 

8  S.  A.  C.,  viii,  254-7. 


8         SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

1614." l  This  pamphlet  relates  that  "there  is  a  vast  and 
unfrequented  place,  heathie,  vaultie,  full  of  unwholesome 
shades  and  overgrowne  hollows,  where  this  Serpent  is 
thought  to  be  bred ;  but  wheresoever  bred,  certaine  and  too 
true  it  is  that  there  it  yet  lives.  .  .  .  He  is  of  Countenance 
very  proud,  and  at  the  sight  or  hearing  of  men  or  cattel 
will  raise  his  necke  upright  and  seem  to  listen  and  looke 
about  with  great  arrogancy.  There  are  likewise  on  either 
side  of  him  discovered  two  great  bunches  so  big  as  a  large 
foote-ball,  and  (as  some  think)  will  in  time  grow  to  wings ; 
but  God,  I  hope,  will  (to  defend  the  poor  people  in  the 
neighbourhood)  that  he  be  destroyed  before  he  grow  so 
fledge." 

When  tales  of  such  prodigies  were  eagerly  swallowed  it 
is  not  surprising  that  a  belief  in  witchcraft,  which  was  held 
in  the  highest  quarters,  and  survived  until  long  afterwards, 
still  prevailed.  The  papers  of  the  Corporation  of  Rye 
record  several  cases.  In  1608  Anne,  wife  of  George  Taylor, 
gentleman,  was  condemned  to  death  for  witchcraft,  but  on 
the  interference  of  the  Earl  of  Northampton,  Lord  Warden 
of  the  Cinque  Ports,  she  was  respited  and  apparently 
escaped.  His  lordship  wrote  with  humanity  and  discre- 
tion :  "  As  I  like  at  no  hand  that  authority  be  made  a  mark 
to  revenge  private  injuries,  so  am  I  not  credulous  of  every 
information  I  receive  against  the  magistrates  for  due  execu- 
tion of  justice,  yet  in  this  case  I  could  be  well  contented  in 
respect  of  her  sex  and  her  present  state,  being  now  with 
child,  and  grown  very  weak  by  reason  thereof,  and  the 
loathsomeness  of  the  prison,  to  afford  her  all  favour  war- 
rantable by  law." 2  In  1645  the  Mayor  ordered  that  Martha, 
the  wife  of  Stephen  Bruff,  and  Anne  Howsell,  widow,  being 
suspected  to  be  witches,  should  be  tried  by  putting  them 
into  the  water.3 

But  if  her  agriculture  was  backward,  and  her  means  of 

1  London,  J.  Trundle,  1614.    Harleian  Miscellany,  iii,  109. 

2  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii  4),  137  seq.  3  Ibid.,  216. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  9 

communication  inadequate — not  an  unmitigated  evil  in 
time  of  war — Sussex  enjoyed  other  sources  of  wealth. 
From  early  times  the  richness  of  the  deposits  of  iron  ore 
and  the  abundance  of  fuel  had  occasioned  a  considerable 
iron  industry,  which  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  became  of 
national  importance.  The  first  iron  cannons  made  in  Eng- 
land were  cast  at  Buxted  by  Ralph  Hoge  or  Hogge  in 
1543.  This  founder  employed  as  assistant  Peter  Baude,  a 
Frenchman;  and  about  the  same  time  Peter  van  Collet,  a 
Flemish  gunsmith,  devised  and  cast  mortar  pieces  from 
ii  to  19  inches  bore.1  Their  English  pupils  would  seem  in 
course  of  time  to  have  outstripped  their  masters.  Shortly 
before  the  Civil  War  we  find  two  Frenchmen  proceeded 
against  for  "  practising  to  allure  into  France  Sir  Sackville 
Crow's  workmen  for  casting  ordnance." 2 

At  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  there  were  in  Sussex  about 
twenty-seven  furnaces,  at  most  of  which  guns  and  shot  were 
made,  and  about  forty-two  forges  or  iron-mills.  It  was  stated 
in  a  petition  to  Charles  II,  praying  for  protection  against 
Swedish  iron,  that  under  the  Commonwealth  the  iron  works 
had  employed  "  at  least  50,000  lusty  able  workmen."  Even 
if  this  is  an  exaggeration,  a  large  working  population  must 
have  been  engaged  not  only  at  the  works  themselves,  but 
in  the  cutting,  hauling,  and  preparation  of  fuel,  and  in  the 
shipment  of  the  finished  product,  which  generally  took  place 
from  Lewes,  Newhaven,  or  Rye.  The  great  landowners, 
such  as  the  Pelhams,  the  Carylls,  and  the  Nevilles,  added 
to  their  wealth  by  engaging  in  the  industry,  or  by  finding 
in  it  a  market  for  their  timber;  and  newer  families,  such  as 
the  Burrells,  the  Gratwickes,  the  Fowles,  and  the  Fullers 
rose  by  its  aid  to  an  important  position  in  the  county.  In 
the  Civil  War  the  almost  uninterrupted  possession  of  Sussex 
and  its  iron-works  must  have  been  an  asset  of  considerable 
value  to  the  Parliamentary  cause. 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  ii,  183. 

2  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  Ixx,  103 ;  Ixii,  28. 


io       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

The  wholesale  destruction  of  timber  as  fuel  at  the  iron- 
works was  viewed  with  much  disapproval  in  certain  quarters. 
Drayton  expressed  a  sentimental  regret: 

Jove's  oak,  the  warlike  ash,  vein'd  elm,  the  softer  beech, 
Short  hazel,  maple  plain,  light  asp,  the  bending  wych, 
Tough  holly,  and  smooth  birch,  must  altogether  burn, 
What  should  the  builder  serve,  supplies  the  forger's  turn.1 

And  other  commercial  interests  raised  objections.  Shore- 
ham,  Hastings,  and  Rye  had  for  centuries  done  a  large 
trade  in  "billets"  for  firewood,  not  only  coast-wise,  but 
with  French  ports.  With  the  development  of  the  iron  in- 
dustry, the  price  of  these  rapidly  rose.  In  1580  the  charge 
at  Brighton  for  "  billet  or  tale  wood  "  had  risen  from  2s.  6d. 
the  hundredweight  to  8s?  The  Corporations  of  Hastings 
and  Rye  conferred  on  the  subject,3  and  pressed  for  legisla- 
tive interference.  Various  acts  were  passed  regulating  the 
cutting  of  wood  to  make  charcoal  for  the  furnaces,  and  pro- 
hibiting the  use  of  timber  trees  for  that  purpose,  in  the 
interests  of  the  shipbuilding  industry,4  for  which  the  excel- 
lence of  Sussex  oak  made  it  especially  valuable.  Long 
afterwards  it  was  noted  that  "  the  quality  of  the  oak  timber 
may  be  collected  from  the  circumstance  of  the  Navy  Con- 
tractors preferring  it  in  all  their  agreements  and  stipulating 
for  Sussex  before  every  other  species  of  oak."  5 

For  Sussex  was  not  only  an  agricultural  and  a  manu- 
facturing county;  its  extended  coast-line  gave  it  some 
maritime  importance,  which  in  earlier  times  had  been  much 
greater.  It  has  been  shown  that  under  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor there  was  a  desire  to  make  the  Sussex  ports,  Win- 
chelsea,  Rye,  and  New  Burgh  (Hastings),  "  a  strong  link  of 
communication  between  England  and  Normandy,"  by  plac- 

1  Polyolbion,  Song  XVII.  2  S.  A.  C.,  ii,  51. 

3  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  56. 

1  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  247. 

5  Young,  Agric.  of  Sussex,  p.  164. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  n 

ing  them  under  the  control  of  F6camp  Abbey,1  and  that 
Steyning,  then  a  port,  was  granted  by  Edward  to  the  same 
body.2  Sussex  abounded  in  harbours  adapted  to  the  use  of 
mediaeval  fleets — Rye,  Winchelsea,  Pevensey,  Hastings, 
Cuckmere,  Shoreham,  Pagham,  and  others.  Even  Brighton 
had  its  little  harbour,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Wellsbourne 
stream,  which  now  flows  underground.  Andrew  Borde, 
writing  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII,  speaks  of  Bryght- 
Hempston  as  among  the "  noble  ports  and  havens  of  the 
realm."3  In  1625  there  were  belonging  "to  Brightempston 
300  mariners  at  least." 4  By  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century  most  of  the  Sussex  ports  had  fallen  into  decay, 
chiefly  owing  to  the  alterations  of  the  coast-line  and  the 
silting  up  of  the  harbours.  Winchelsea,  once  the  great 
emporium  of  French  wines,  and  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI 
the  chief  port  of  embarkation  for  France,  had  lost  its 
harbour  from  this  cause  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  and  was 
now  commercially  ruined  and  almost  deserted.5  Hastings 
had  suffered  much  from  the  repeated  destruction  of  its  pier, 
as  appears  in  a  very  interesting  memorandum  preserved 
among  the  Corporation  papers,  which  relates  that  "  the  pier 
of  Hastings  was  begun  to  be  re-edified  by  certain  western 
men  sent  for  of  purpose  from  the  Cobb  of  Lyme.8  And  by 
them  was  built  a  high  work  without  the  old  pier,  full  south, 
all  of  huge  rocks  artificially  piled  edgelong  one  close  by 
another  of  a  great  height,  but  without  any  timber,  yet  to 
men's  judgement  unremoveable  it  grew  to  so  huge  a  pile; 

1  Professor  Burrows,  Historic  Towns;  Cinque  Ports,  pp.  26-9. 

2  J.  Horace  Round,  Feudal  England,  p.  319. 

3  S.  A.  C.,  xvi,  247. 

4  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dxxi,  170.  5  See  post,  page  267. 

6  "  In  the  very  entrance  into  Dorset  out  of  Denshire,  the  first  place 
that  showeth  itself  on  the  shore  is  Lime,  a  little  town  situate  upon  a 
steep  hille;  which  scarcely  may  challenge  the  name  of  a  Port  or 
Haven  towne,  though  it  be  frequented  with  fishermen,  and  hath  a 
rode  under  it  called  the  Cobbe,  sufficiently  defended  from  the  force  of 
winds  with  rocks  and  high  trees." — CAMDEN. 


12       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

but  notwithstanding,  the  first  winter  flow  overthrew  it  in  a 
moment  and  dispersed  the  huge  rocks  like  thin  planks. 
And  so  that  cost  was  lost.  But  the  next  year  after  other 
workmen  of  better  knowledge  (as  was  thought)  were  called 
thence,  and  by  general  consent  the  like  piece  of  work  was 
begun  to  be  again  built  with  the  like  huge  rocks.  And  for 
more  surety,  by  advice  of  the  master  workman,  it  was 
thought  best  (because  they  judged  the  decay  of  the  former 
was  for  want  of  some  timber)  to  lay  the  foundation  of  this 
new  work  within  the  timber  work  of  the  old  pier  and  so  to 
continue  with  timber  braces  and  bars,  cross  dogs  and  such 
like  up  to  the  top.  And  this  work  was  with  singular  in- 
dustry and  art  brought  above  the  full,  and  by  All  Hallow- 
tide  1597  well  near  finished,  viz.: — thirty  foot  high  and  a 
hundred  foot  long  at  least,  beautiful  to  behold,  huge,  in- 
vincible, and  unremoveable  in  the  judgement  of  all  the 
beholders,  amounting  to  a  great  charge,  whereunto  the 
whole  shire  and  divers  beholders  were  contributaries  of 
benevolence,  besides  the  Town's  great  expenses.  But  behold 
when  men  were  most  secure  and  thought  the  work  to  be 
perpetual,  on  All  Saints'  Day  1597  appeared  the  mighty 
force  of  God,  who  with  the  finger  of  his  hand  and  one  great 
and  exceeding  high  spring  tide  with  a  south  east  wind 
overthrew  this  huge  work  in  less  than  an  hour,  to  the 
great  terror  and  abashment  of  all  beholders,  to  the  great 
discredit  of  the  like  work  hereafter  with  the  Country,  and 
to  the  manifest  undoing  of  the  Town  which  by  reason 
thereof  was  left  greatly  indebted." 1 

Rye  had  also  lost  much  of  its  earlier  importance.  It  was 
stated  in  the  draft  of  an  Act  of  1624  that  the  town  of  Rye 
had  been  of  great  consequence  to  the  State,  in  that  it  had 
supplied  his  Majesty's  house,  and  that  part  of  the  king- 
dom, with  more  plentiful  store  of  fish  than  any  two  towns 
in  England.  Its  trade  and  traffic  had  been  so  great  that 

1  Hastings  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  357. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  13 

it  had  paid  £2,000  a  year  Customs  in  Queen  Elizabeth's 
time.  Its  shipping  and  mariners  had  done  the  King  and 
the  kingdom  greater  service  than  any  of  the  Ports,1  its 
harbour  was  not  only  a  place  of  refuge  for  ships  in  distress, 
but  the  most  convenient  in  England  for  passage  to  the 
heart  of  France.  But  of  late  years  the  harbour  was  much 
"  swarved  up  "  with  sand  brought  in  by  the  sea,  for  want 
of  a  sufficient  fresh  to  drive  it  back ;  wherefore  the  town 
was  impoverished  for  want  of  trade,  and  unpeopled,  there 
being  a  hundred  houses  uninhabited.2 

The  efforts  of  the  town  authorities  to  keep  the  harbour 
open  did  not  command  universal  respect.  It  was  com- 
plained of  John  Allen,  goldsmith,  in  1611,  that  he  had  said 
that  "  the  harbour  makers  were  brewers  and  bakers,  shep- 
herds and  silver-candlestick-makers,  carters  and  hogschops," 
and  had  made  "divers  other  bad  speeches."3  But  Rye, 
though  somewhat  decayed,  had  managed  to  maintain  its 
position  as  the  chief  port  on  the  coast  between  Dover  and 
Portsmouth.  It  was  the  recognized  port  for  traffic  with 
Dieppe,  and  a  regular  service  of  passenger  boats  was  kept 
up,  even  during  the  Civil  War.  The  Rye  Passage-book,  a 
few  years  before  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  gives  a  long 
list  of  passengers — of  all  classes — between  the  two  ports ; 4 
and  in  1641  Sir  Francis  Windebank  recommended  his  son 
Thomas  to  cross  the  Channel  by  "  a  little  ordinary  vessel 
of  Rye." 5 

As  a  maritime  county,  exposed  to  the  depredations  of 
hostile  fleets,  Sussex  had  not  much  ground  for  objecting  to 
the  imposition  of  ship-money,  the  attempt  to  levy  which 
upon  inland  counties  brought  matters  between  the  King 
and  his  subjects  to  a  head.  The  first  writs  were  issued  on 
2Oth  October  1634,  and  addressed  only  to  the  ports  and 

1  No  doubt  the  Cinque  Ports  are  referred  to. 

2  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  167. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  147.  *  S.  A.  C.,  xviii,  170-179. 

5  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  cccclxxxii,  76-77;  cccclxxxv,  116. 


14       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

maritime  places.  The  Cinque  Ports  were  ordered  to  provide 
an  8oo-ton  ship  (which  none  of  them  possessed),  or  its 
equivalent  in  money,  £6,375.  The  second  writ  of  4th 
August  1635,  required  from  the  Cinque  Ports,  coupled  with 
the  county  of  Kent,  an  Soo-ton  ship ;  and  from  the  county 
of  Sussex  a  5<DO-ton  ship,  or  £5,000;  towards  which 
Hastings  was  rated  at  £410,  Chichester  at  £200,  Arundel 
at  £30,  and  Shoreham  at  £20.  The  third  and  fourth  writs 
of  1636  and  1639  required  similar  provision  of  ships,  but 
the  assessment  of  the  towns  was  considerably  reduced.' 

But  the  sea-side  counties  had  their  own  grievance,  in 
that  although  they  were  called  upon  to  pay  for  a  navy  it  was 
used  not  for  their  protection,  but  for  dynastic  purposes,  or 
"  merely  as  a  pageant."  2  The  Channel  was  full  of  privateers 
from  Dunkirk  and  Ostend,  and  Algerian  pirates,  who 
reaped  a  rich  harvest.  The  master  of  a  Rye  fishing  boat, 
which  had  been  plundered  by  a  Dunkirk  privateer,  deposed 
that  he  had  seen  thirty-four  others  on  the  coast,  and  that 
there  was  always  one  stationed  permanently  outside  the 
harbour.  It  is  no  wonder  that  when  war  broke  out  the  sea- 
board of  Sussex,  in  common  with  most  of  the  ports 
throughout  the  kingdom,  stood  solidly  to  the  Parliament. 

As  regards  the  general  social  condition  of  the  county  in 
the  period  preceding  the  Civil  War,  there  is  plenty  of 
evidence  of  a  prevailing  prosperity,  in  spite  of  occasional 
troubles,  such  as  the  great  famine  of  1630-3 1.3  The  build- 
ing or  rebuilding  of  such  stately  mansions  as  Wiston, 
Danny,  Slaugham,  Wakehurst,  Gravetye,  and  Blackdown, 
attests  the  wealth  of  the  gentry.  At  the  greatest  of  them 
all,  Cowdray  House,  Lord  Montague  kept  an  almost  royal 
state.  A  house  in  which  the  "  officers "  and  other  male 
servants  numbered  at  least  sixty,  and  probably  a  great 
many  more,  must  have  given  much  employment  to  the 
surrounding  country.  When  Queen  Elizabeth  visited  Cow- 

1  See  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  156.  *  Ibid.,  157. 

3  See  S.  A.  C.,  xvi,  20  seq. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  15 

dray  she  was  "  most  royallie  feasted ;  the  proportion  of 
breakfast  was  three  oxen  and  one  hundred  and  fortie 
geese."1  And  not  only  were  the  ancient  families  of 
the  county  housing  themselves  in  splendid  fashion,  but 
wealthy  Londoners  were  choosing  Sussex,  in  spite  of  its 
bad  roads  and  reputation  for  savagery,  as  a  place  of 
residence.  Thomas  May  of  Rawmere,  in  Mid  Lavant,2 
was  the  grandson  of  a  rich  London  tailor  of  the  time  of 
Elizabeth;  Sir  William  Morley  of  Halnaker  was  the  son 
of  John  Morley  of  Saxham,  in  Suffolk,  who,  having  grown 
rich  in  his  place  of  "  Apposer  of  the  Extracts  "  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  exchequer,  had  purchased  Halnaker  and  ob- 
tained a  grant  of  arms  somewhat  similar  to  those  of  the 
more  ancient  Morleys  of  Glynde,  with  whom  he  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  connected ; 3  the  gallant  cavalier,  Sir 
Thomas  Bowyer,  who,  upon  paying  his  enormous  fine  of 
^"2,033  i8s.  yd,,  said  cheerfully  that  "  he  had  gotten  a  cheap 
pennyworth  to  preserve  peace  of  conscience," 4  came  of  a 
family  enriched  by  trade  in  the  City  of  London. 

John  Evelyn,  the  diarist,  records  that  his  father's  estate 
"was  esteemed  ^"4,000  per  annum,5  well  wooded  and  full 
of  timber."  In  1634  "my  father  was  appointed  Sheriff  for 
Surrey  and  Sussex,  before  they  were  disjoined ;  he  had 
116  servants  in  livery,  every  one  liveried  in  green  satin 
doublets ;  divers  gentlemen  and  persons  of  quality  waited 
on  him  in  the  same  garb  and  habit,  which  at  that  time 
(when  30  or  40  was  the  usual  retinue  of  the  high  Sheriff) 
was  esteemed  a  great  matter." 

On  3rd  November  1640,  the  Long  Parliament  met  at 
Westminster;  that  Parliament,  "which  indeed  is  definable 
as  the  Father  of  Parliaments,  which  first  rendered  Parlia- 
ments supreme,  and  has  since  set  the  whole  world  upon 
chase  of  Parliaments,  a  notable  speculation  very  lively  in 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  1 86.  2  See  ante,  p.  4. 

3  S.  A.  C.,  v,  46.  4  Ibid.,  xix,  94  n. 

5  Equal  to  ,£16,000  or  ,£20,000  in  the  present  day. 


16       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

most  parts  of  Europe  to-day."1  Sussex  returned  to  it 
twenty-eight  members,  who,  judged  by  their  subsequent 
conduct,  may  be  classed  as  seventeen  Roundheads  and 
eleven  Cavaliers.  On  the  Parliamentary  side,  among  those 
who  were  to  be  most  prominent  in  county  affairs  during 
the  war,  were  Anthony  Stapley,  of  Patcham,  who,  being 
returned  both  for  the  county  and  for  Lewes,  elected  to  sit 
for  the  county;  Sir  Thomas  Pelham,  Bart,  for  the  county; 
Herbert  Morley,  of  Glynde,  for  Lewes;  William  Cawley, 
of  Chichester,  brewer,  for  Midhurst;  Thomas  Middleton 
for  Horsham.  Among  the  Royalists,  who  were  all  "dis- 
abled" in  the  early  years  of  the  war,  were  Christopher 
Lewknor  and  Sir  William  Morley,  knt,  returned  for 
Chichester;  Sir  Thomas  Bowyer,  for  Bramber;  Sir  Edward 
Alford  for  Arundel;  and  John  Ashburnham — Charles' 
faithful  friend  and  attendant  "  Jack  " — for  Hastings. 

This  House  of  Commons  of  1640,  and  the  House  as  we 
know  it,  are  two  very  different  things.  To  us  the  House  is 
the  ultimate  repository  of  the  nation's  aspirations;  its  in- 
tentions may  be  delayed  by  the  Crown  or  the  House  of 
Lords,  but  both  forces  will  bow  before  what  is  held  to  be 
the  national  will  decisively  expressed  in  general  elections. 
In  the  eventful  two  years  between  the  election  of  the 
Long  Parliament  and  the  outbreak  of  war,  the  House  was 
only  feeling  its  way  to  a  commanding  position.  The  King 
was  still  the  one  permanent  and  guiding  influence  in  the 
Constitution.  The  nation  was  accustomed  to  see  parlia- 
ments summoned  only  at  long  intervals  and  for  special 
purposes.  This  particular  House,  intent  on  substituting  a 
limited  for  an  absolute  monarchy,  and  engaged  on  such 
momentous  proceedings  as  the  impeachment  of  Strafford, 
felt  the  need  of  a  more  precise  popular  mandate  than  its 
election  had  given  it.  Pym,  the  popular  leader,  who  still 
clung  to  the  idea  that  the  King  must  be  brought  round  by 
persuasion  and  not  by  force,  that  he  had  only  to  be  sur- 

1  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  iii,  244. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  17 

rounded  by  good  counsellors  for  all  to  be  right,  found  a 
way  to  such  a  mandate  in  the  "  Protestation."  This  docu- 
ment, with  its  accompanying  resolutions,  expressed  in  a 
manner  characteristic  of  the  times  the  abhorrence  felt  by 
the  nation  alike  of  the  Romish  religion  and  of  illegal  taxa- 
tion. It  was  ordered  to  be  signed  by  all  males  aged  eigh- 
teen and  upwards,  and  was  intended  to  be  a  "  Shibboleth 
to  discover  a  true  Israelite,"  for  "  what  person  soever  shall 
not  make  the  protestation  is  unfit  to  bear  office  in  the 
Church  or  Common-wealth."  To  the  local  historian,  the 
signatures  to  the  Protestation  are  perhaps  even  more  im- 
portant than  the  document  itself.  The  returns  for  the 
western  half  of  Sussex  are  very  complete,  and  have  been 
printed.1  Alike  to  the  genealogist  and  to  student  of  social 
conditions  they  are  invaluable.  With  some  allowance  for 
imperfect  returns,  they  give  a  total  of  about  thirteen  thous- 
and, four  hundred  and  nineteen  male  inhabitants  of  West 
Sussex  aged  eighteen  years  and  upwards.  The  Protestation 
was  administered  by  the  Justices  of  the  Peace  to  the  respect- 
ive ministers,  churchwardens,  and  other  officers,  who  sub- 
sequently gave  it  to  the  inhabitants  of  their  parishes.  As 
a  rule  in  addition  to  the  names  of  those  who  took  it,  the 
names  of  absentees  and  those  who  refused  it  are  noted. 
Doubtless  its  main  object  was  not  only  to  support  the 
Protestant  religion,  but  also  to  discover  Roman  Catholics ; 
a  fact  which  several  of  the  Sussex  clergy  grasped.  The 
return  from  Binderton  states:  "There  is  noe  Recusant 
Papist,  or  any  other,  in  this  Parish,  that  refused  to  make 
this  Protestation  " ;  the  Rector  of  Pagham,  after  giving  the 
names  of  absentees,  mentions:  "We  have  no  Papists  nor 
other  sectaries  in  our  Parish."  As  regards  the  diffusion  of 
population,  the  returns  give  a  total  male  population  for 
Chichester  of  about  772;  for  Horsham  of  509;  for  Petworth 

1  Sussex  Record  Society,  vol.  v,  1906;  West  Sussex  Protestation 
Returns,  1641-2 ;  transcribed,  edited,  and  indexed  by  R.  Garraway 
Rice,  F.S.A. 

C 


i8      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

of  419;  for  Kirkford  of  309 ;  for  Midhurst  of  271 ;  for  West- 
bourne  of  236;  for  Billingshurst  of  225  ;  for  Pulborough  of 
220;  for  Steyning  of  204;  for  South  Harting  of  199;  for 
Wisborough  Green  of  181 ;  and  for  West  Grinstead  of  179. 
It  is  a  piece  of  curiously  good  fortune  that  such  definite 
information  should  be  available. 

Some  evidence  of  the  feeling  of  the  county  is  given  by 
the  petitions  of  February,  1642,  from  the  high  sheriff, 
knights,  ministers,  and  other  inhabitants  of  Sussex  to  the 
Houses  of  Parliament.  After  thanking  the  Lords  for  pass- 
ing the  Bill  for  taking  away  the  bishops'  votes  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  Commons  for  what  they  had  done  in  that 
House,  the  petitioners  proceed :  "  Our  humble  desires  are 
that  the  laws  of  God  may  be  truly  maintained ;  government 
and  discipline  so  settled  that  we  may  conform  therein  to 
the  perfect  rule  of  God's  word;  able  learned  and  painful 
ministers  may  be  encouraged,  scandalous  speedily  displaced ; 
pluralities  and  unwarranted  orders  and  dignities  of  the 
clergy  taken  away;  that  the  probate  of  wills  may  be  referred 
to  the  cognizance  of  temporal  courts;  that  places  of  con- 
cernment in  the  Kingdom  may  be  in  the  hands  of  persons 
of  ability,  integrity  and  good  conversation ;  Papists  may  be 
totally  disarmed,  their  persons  confined,  their  subtle  con- 
veyances of  their  estates  discovered  and  prevented ;  secret 
evil  counsels  and  counsellors  taken  away  from  his  Majesty, 
and  delinquents  punished;  sale  of  honour  and  offices  re- 
strained ;  that  our  county  more  than  seventy  miles  naked 
to  the  sea  may  speedily  be  put  into  a  posture  of  warlike 
defence  by  sea  and  land,  seamen  encouraged,  fishing  main- 
tained; Ireland  further  relieved;  the  clergy  and  others  dis- 
obeying your  late  orders  in  our  Cathedral  and  other  churches 
questioned;  the  universities  thoroughly  purged;  the  mass 
utterly  abolished." 

Although  Sussex  was  by  no  means  especially  strong  in 
Royalist  families,  yet  of  the  men  who  were  closely  associ- 
ated with  the  King  at  the  most  critical  points  of  his  career 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  19 

quite  a  remarkable  number  were  of  Sussex  birth  or  Sussex 
origin.  Henry  Gage,  his  governor  of  Oxford,  John  Ash- 
burnham,  his  treasurer  and  twice  his  comrade  in  flight, 
Stephen  Goffe  his  trusted  emissary  to  the  Continent, 
Accepted  Frewen  his  favoured  chaplain,  William  Juxon 
his  companion  to  the  scaffold :  to  these  we  may  add  the 
Gorings,  father  and  son,  of  whom  the  younger  perhaps  did 
more  to  bring  ruin  on  the  royal  cause  than  almost  any  of 
its  enemies.  And  in  those  last  stormy  weeks  before  Charles 
left  London,  his  promotion  of  and  reliance  on  a  Sussex 
cavalier  of  doubtful  character  helped  to  precipitate  the 
hostility  both  of  the  Parliament  and  the  City. 

In  pursuance,  as  it  was  commonly  supposed,  of  his  plan 
to  arrest  the  leaders  of  the  Commons,  Charles  on  23rd 
December  1641  dismissed  Sir  William  Balfour,  a  man  of 
staunch  integrity,  from  the  Lieutenancy  of  the  Tower,  and 
appointed  Colonel  Lunsford  in  his  place.  "  Lunsford  was 
only  known  as  a  debauched  ruffian,  who  was  believed  cap- 
able of  any  villany.  If  the  talk  of  the  seizure  and  execution 
of  the  leaders,  of  which  so  much  had  been  recently  heard, 
was  to  be  carried  into  practice,  Lunsford  was  the  very  man 
to  keep  a  tight  hold  on  his  prisoners."  1 

Thomas  Lunsford,  of  Whiligh  in  East  Hoathly,  at  this 
time  about  thirty-two  years  of  age,  had  already  enjoyed  a 
somewhat  varied  career.  Eight  years  before,  in  1633,  he 
had  been  brought  before  the  Star  Chamber  for  poaching 
the  deer  and  assaulting  the  gamekeepers  of  his  neighbour 
and  cousin,  Sir  Thomas  Pelham,  and  fined  £1,000  to  the 
King  and  £500  to  Sir  Thomas.  Becoming  desperate,  he 
"  lay  in  wait  and  beset  Sir  Thomas  Pelham,  as  he  was  re- 
turning from  church  in  his  coach  on  a  Sunday,  discharging 
two  pistols  into  his  coach." 2  This  further  outrage  brought 
fresh  fines  of  £5,000  and  £3,000  upon  him — the  Star 
Chamber  knew  how  to  fine — whereupon  he  fled  to  France, 

1  Gardiner,  History  of  England,  1603-42,  x,  108. 

a  City  of  London's  petition  for  his  dismissal.   S.  A.  C.,  v,  81. 


20      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

and  taking  service  there,  rose  to  be  a  colonel  of  foot.  The 
Earl  of  Dorset,  writing  to  Sir  Thomas  Pelham  on  26th  Oct- 
ober 1633,  speaks  of  him  as  "  that  young  outlaw,  Mr.  Luns- 
ford,  who  fears  neither  God  nor  man,  and  who  having  given 
himself  over  unto  all  lewdness  and  dissoluteness,  only 
studies  to  affront  justice." l  Clarendon  describes  him  more 
mildly  as  "of  no  good  education."  In  1639  he  returned  to 
England,  became  reconciled  to  his  cousin,  and  obtained  the 
King's  pardon  for  his  fines. 

The  appointment  to  the  Lieutenancy  of  the  Tower  of  "  a 
man  given  to  drinking,  swearing  and  quarrelling,  much  in 
debt  and  very  desperate,"  raised  a  furious  storm.  The 
Commons  requested  the  Earl  of  Newport,  Constable  of  the 
Tower,  and  therefore  Lunsford's  superior  officer,  to  take 
personal  charge  of  the  fortress.  Charles  replied  by  dis- 
missing Newport  from  the  Constableship.  On  26th  Dec- 
ember the  Lord  Mayor  assured  the  King  that  unless  Luns- 
ford  were  removed  he  could  not  answer  for  the  peace  of 
the  City,  as  the  apprentices  would  try  to  storm  the  Tower. 
Charles  yielded,  dismissed  Lunsford  (with  a  knighthood), 
and  appointed  in  his  stead  Sir  John  Byron,  an  honourable 
man  of  stainless  character.  But  the  mischief  was  done. 

Next  day  Lunsford  led  an  attack  on  a  number  of  appren- 
tices and  others  who  had  invaded  Westminster  Hall  and 
saluted  the  bishops  with  cries  of  "  No  Popish  Lords ! "  A 
week  later  the  climax  came.  One  of  the  most  stirring  and 
dramatic  scenes  in  the  history  of  England  was  enacted  on 
4th  January  1642,  when  Charles,  accompanied  by  an  armed 
band  of  300  gentlemen  and  servants,  went  down  to  the 
House,  "  stepped  through  the  door  which  none  of  his  pre- 
decessors had  ever  passed," 2  and  demanded  the  surrender 
of  the  five  popular  leaders,  Pym,  Hampden,  Holies,  Hazle- 
rigg,  and  Strode.  Baffled  by  their  absence,  and  by  the 
resolute  dignity  of  the-Speaker,  William  Lenthall,  Charles 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  82. 

2  Gardiner,  History  of  England,  1603-42,  x,  139. 


BEFORE  THE  WAR  21 

withdrew,  but  not  before  the  Lunsfords  of  his  armed 
following, 

His  bravos  of  Alsatia  and  pages  of  Whitehall, 

had  exhibited  a  strong  desire  to  make  short  work  of  the 
members.  "The  Commons  at  once  adjourned,  with  the 
sense  that  they  had  but  just  escaped  a  massacre.  The 
orderly  D'Ewes  testified  his  opinion  of  the  danger  by  step- 
ping to  his  lodgings  and  immediately  making  his  will." l 

On  loth  January  the  King,  with  Thomas  Lunsford  and 
his  brother  Herbert  in  his  escort,  left  London,  never  to 
return  but  as  a  prisoner  to  hear  his  sentence  of  death. 

1  Gardiner,  History  of  England,  1603-42,  x,  139. 


CHAPTER  II 

PURITAN    SUSSEX 

IF  the  blood  of  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  churches,  the 
Marian  persecution,  with  its  heavy  roll  of  Sussex  vic- 
tims, doubtless  bore  in  due  time  its  inevitable  fruit.  Thirty- 
three  men  and  women,  about  an  eighth  of  the  total  number 
of  victims  in  all  England,  perished  at  the  stake  in  various 
Sussex  towns.  Lewes  has  not  yet  forgotten  the  day,  three 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  on  which  Richard  Woodman 
the  ironmaster,  and  nine  other  Protestants,  were  done  to 
death  by  fire  in  her  main  street.  From  our  general  know- 
ledge of  the  futility  of  such  methods  of  repression,  we 
should  infer  that  in  the  next  generation  or  two  there  would 
be  a  sturdy  growth  of  militant  Protestantism  of  an  advanced 
type,  and  with  reason.  Throughout  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
and  still  more  in  that  of  her  successor,  what  came  to  be 
called  Puritanism  was  advancing  with  great  strides.  Partly 
its  strength  was  due  to  the  deficiencies  of  the  Reformed 
Church  of  England,  whose  ministers  too  often  failed  to 
satisfy  the  spiritual  aspirations  of  their  people,  especially  as 
regards  preaching  and  the  exposition  of  Scripture;  partly 
to  the  influence  of  the  Bible,  then  a  new  book  to  English- 
men, and  the  only  book  to  which  most  of  them  had  any 
access.  Still  the  noblest  example  of  the  English  language, 
the  effect  of  the  Bible  on  minds  unoccupied  with  any  rival 
literature  was  immense.  It  directed  the  whole  trend  of 
thought  in  the  nation,  it  dominated  the  national  speech, 
and  it  deeply  affected  the  national  character.  A  new  and 

22 


PURITAN  SUSSEX  23 

unprecedented  religious  fervour,  a  fresh  conception  of  man's 
life  and  destiny,  spread  through  every  class. 

In  1591  the  Mayor  and  Jurats  of  Rye  were  troubled 
about  "  a  small  secte  of  purytanes,  more  holy  in  shewe  than 
in  dede,"  who  were  putting  the  law  in  motion  against  Mr. 
Greenwood,  the  Corporation's  preacher,  for  non-residence, 
and  for  that  purpose  had  procured  "  certain  mutinous  fellows 
of  the  town  who  profess  to  be  more  pure  than  others,  and 
are  in  deed  much  worse  than  in  show  "  to  lay  an  informa- 
tion against  him,  whereby  he  was  very  likely  to  be  taken 
from  them,  and  to  bear  the  penalty  of  the  law.  By  way  of 
checking  the  proceedings  of  these  troublesome  persons,  the 
Corporation  held  an  inquiry  and  committed  some  of  them 
to  prison.  Robert  Rede,  a  joiner,  deposed  concerning  a 
fellow  tradesman :  "  I  have  hard  Francis  Godfrey  say  that 
my  Lord  of  Canterbury  is  but  the  Pope  of  Inglande,  and 
that  the  Booke  of  Comon  Prayer  which  he  alowethe  to  be 
sayde  in  the  Church  is  but  masse  translated  and  dumdogs 
to  reade  it,  for  those  ministers  that  do  not  preache  they  call 
them  dumdogs."  * 

But  the  Puritans  were  not  to  be  easily  put  down — in 
spite  of  James  I's  declaration  that  he  would  make  them 
conform,  "  or  else  harrie  them  out  of  the  land,  or  else  do 
worse;  only  hang  them — that's  all."  In  Sussex  records  of 
the  time  we  may  note  a  progressive  change  of  attitude  on 
the  part  of  the  authorities  towards  them.  Nineteen  years 
after  the  magistrates  of  Rye  had  committed  Puritans  to 
prison  as  "  mutinous  fellows,"  Rye  had  a  Puritan  mayor. 
In  1610  Richard  Colbrand  of  Holborn,  in  the  county  of 
Middlesex,  musician,  deposed  that  while  lodging  at  the  inn 
of  one  Daniell  at  Rye,  he  heard  the  said  Daniell  say:  "We 
have  a  Puritan  to  our  Mayor  and  therefore  you  may  play 
as  long  as  you  will  at  his  door,  but  he  will  give  you 
nothing."  And  that  was  the  occasion  that  they  stayed  from 
playing  and  showing  their  music  unto  Mr.  Mayor.2 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  99.  3  Ibid.,  p.  144. 


24       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

The  prevalence  of  Christian  names  characteristically 
Puritan  during  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
points  to  the  spread  of  Puritan  doctrines.  As  early  as  1588 
the  Rev.  John  Frewen,  the  Puritan  rector  of  Northiam, 
baptized  his  eldest  son  "  Accepted " ; l  his  second  son  he 
named  "  Thankfull."  We  are  sometimes  tempted  to  sup- 
pose that  Barebone,  the  leather  seller,  who  gave  his  name 
to  the  Parliament  of  1653,  assumed  the  Christian  name 
"  Praise-God  "  to  be  in  the  fashion.  But  the  Sussex  regis- 
ters of  a  much  earlier  date  exhibit  plentiful  examples  of 
such  names.  A  jury  list 2  of  the  period  includes  the  follow- 
ing: Be-courteous  Cole  of  Pevensey ;  Safety-on-High  Snat 
of  Uckfield;  Search-the-Scriptures  Moreton  of  Salehurst; 
Increase  Weeks  of  Cuckfield;  Kill-sin  Pemble  of  West- 
ham;  Fly-debate  Smart,  Fly-fornication  Richardson, 
Seek-wisdom  Wood,  Much-mercy  Cryer,  all  of  Waldron ; 
Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith  White  of  Ewhurst;  Small- 
hope  Biggs  of  Rye;  Earth  Adams  of  Warbleton;  The- 
peace-of-God  Knight  of  Burwash.  But  perhaps  Sussex  has 
no  name  to  show  equal  in  strangeness  to  that  of  Humilia- 
tion Scratcher,  which  appears  in  the  parish  registers  of 
Ware  in  Hertfordshire. 

The  Rev.  John  Frewen,  a  man  of  the  highest  character, 
and  a  thorough  Puritan  in  heart  and  conduct,  particularly 
excited  the  opposition  of  the  orthodox  party.  Among  the 
Rye  muniments  is  a  declaration  touching  one  John  Snepp, 
otherwise  unknown  to  fame,  "that  he  affirmeth  it  was  a 
merrier  world  when  ministers  might  not  marry;  that  now 
they  ought  not  to  marry,  and  that  their  children  are  ille- 
gitimate ;  that  he  absented  himself  from  church  at  Northiam 
for  half  a  year,  and  was  a  profaner  of  the  Sabbath  in  enter- 
taining men's  servants  in  playing  of  cards  and  dice.  That 
he  threatened  to  pull  Mr.  Frewen  out  of  the  pulpit  and  spit 

1  Archbishop  of  York,  1660-64,  see  post,  p.  240. 

2  Burrell  MSS.,  quoted  by  Horsfield,  Lewes,  i,  202  n.    See  also 
Salzmann,  History  of  Hailsham,  1901,  p.  50. 


PURITAN  SUSSEX  25 

in  his  face  and  make  the  said  Mr.  Frewen  come  to  him  on 
his  knees;  and  threatened  that  songs  should  be  made  of 
him." l 

In  1611  some  of  Mr.  Frewen's  parishioners  preferred  a 
bill  of  indictment  for  nonconformity  against  him  at  the 
Lewes  summer  assizes;  but  the  grand  jury  ignored  the 
bill.2  In  1622  Mr.  Frewen  himself  proceeded  in  the  ecclesi- 
astical court  at  Lewes  against  one  of  his  parishioners,  Rob- 
ert Creswell,  for  insulting  him  on  the  open  highway, "  calling 
him  old  Fole,  old  Asse,  old  Coxscombe,"  and  irreverently 
attacking  certain  doctrines  which  he  had  propounded  the 
Sunday  before.  After  due  citation  Creswell  was  excom- 
municated.3 

To  the  Puritan  propaganda  of  such  men  as  Frewen,  the 
slackness  and  inefficiency  of  many  of  the  church  clergy 
rendered  powerful  assistance.  Among  the  interrogatories 
addressed  to  the  Chapter  of  Chichester  Cathedral  by  Bishop 
Harsnett  in  1616  were  the  following: 

(1)  How  often  hath  the  Dean  preached  in  the  Cathedral 
Church,  or  any  other  Church  of  the  Diocese,  during  the  six 
or  seven  years  last  past? 

(2)  Is  an  Advowson  of  the  Benefice  of  Amport  passed 
or  granted  unto  a  layman  for  money? 

(3)  Do  the  Vicars  or  Singing  men  duly  and  diligently 
attend  the  performance  of  Divine  Service  in  the  Cathedral 
Church?  Within  these  three  years  last  have  not  all  or  most 
of  them  been  absent   at    once    at   beginning    of   Divine 
Service? 

(4)  How  cometh  it  to  pass  that  the  Church  officers  dwell 
without  the  close,  and  laymen  inhabit  within  it?  That  ale- 
houses have  been  lately  suffered  to  be  kept  within  your 
close,  that  laymen  have  keys  to  open  the  gates  of  the 
closes  when  they  list?    That  boys  and  hogs  do  beastly 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  133.    For  the  "making 
of  songs  "  concerning  ministers,  cf.  post,  p.  200. 

2  Lower's  Worthies  of  Sussex,  p.  48.  3  Ibid. 


26       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

defile  the  walls  and  yards  belonging  to  the  Cathedral 
Church,  and  that  no  reformation  hath  been  had  herein 
notwithstanding  the  often  complaints  and  presentments  of 
the  same? l 

If  the  condition  of  things  here  suggested  prevailed  in  the 
cathedral  city,  we  may  suppose  the  case  of  many  country 
parishes  to  have  been  no  better.  And  from  the  records  of 
the  Archdeaconry  Court  at  Lewes  between  1580  and  1640 
we  have  ample  evidence  of  slovenliness  and  worse.2  Not 
only  were  the  fabrics  of  many  churches  kept  in  ill  repair, 
the  windows  unglazed  and  the  roofs  leaky,  the  churchyard 
neglected  or  given  over  to  the  parson's  cattle;  but  there 
are  frequent  cases  of  personal  default  on  the  part  of  the 
clergy.  At  Clayton  it  was  alleged  that  "  we  have  had  no 
sermons  in  our  parish  church  since  Christmas  now  two 
years  in  the  default  of  the  parson."  The  parson  was  John 
Farley,  evidently  a  "dumdog."  Thomas  Bide,  rector  of 
Crawley,  was  presented  "  for  not  preaching  nor  reading  any 
monthly  sermon,  no,  not  a  sermon  in  the  whole  yeare;  for 
giving  himself  to  base  and  servile  labour;  neither  is  his 
apparell  grave  decent  or  comely ;  hee  weareth  no  surplice 
in  tyme  of  divine  service  or  ministering  the  sacraments;  he 
catechizeth  not  at  .all ;  his  houses  are  in  decaye,  the  chancel 
untyled  and  is  much  decayed  and  in  tyme  will  come  to 
utter  ruine." 

Numerous  complaints  in  this  court  against  the  clergy  for 
neglect  of  ceremony  and  ritual  exhibit  the  spread  of  Puri- 
tanical ideas  among  them.  In  1605  John  Batnor,  rector  of 
Westmeston,  was  presented  "  for  that  he  doth  not  say  the 
letany,  nor  ten  commandments ;  neither  doth  he  in  bap- 
tisme  signe  with  the  signe  of  the  Crosse,  but  with  the  signe 
of  the  Covenant;  neither  doth  he  weare  the  surplice";  and 
the  vicar  of  Cuckfield  for  similar  offences.  In  1621  Thomas 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Various  Collections,  1901,  p.  201. 

2  See  the  article  on  the  Act  Books  of  this  Court  by  Mr.  W.  C. 
Renshaw,  K.C.,  in  S.  A.  C.,  xlix. 


PURITAN  SUSSEX  27 

Warren,  curate  of  Rye,  "  for  the  administering  the  Sacra- 
ment to  many  sitting  and  not  kneeling."  Mr.  Warren  seems 
to  have  been  a  very  aggressive  Puritan,  and  was  several 
times  before  the  Court  in  connection  with  disorderly  scenes 
which  took  place  at  Rye,  and  one  of  his  chief  supporters, 
Joseph  Benbrick,  gent,  was  presented  "  for  not  bowing  at 
the  name  of  Jesus  when  the  gospell  is  reading." 

The  Court  seems  to  have  taken  notice  of  very  trivial 
charges  against  the  laity,  especially  in  connection  with  the 
observance  of  Sunday  and  holy  days.  Some  of  these  are 
interesting  as  evidence  of  the  petty  parochial  tyranny 
which  prevailed  at  the  time.  Among  them  may  be  noted 
the  cases  of  Thomas  Binnes  of  West  Hoathly  "  for  work- 
ing on  St.  Luke's  day  last ";  Thomas  Ashbee  of  Maresfield 
"for  working  his  oxen  on  the  day  of  St.  Michael";  John 
Heaves  "  for  sittinge  disorderly  in  the  chancel  with  a  dog 
on  his  knee";  James  Payne  of  Eastbourne  "for  that  he 
doth  greatly  offend  the  people  in  drunkenness  being  a 
manifest  and  vile  drunkard,  almost  every  day  giving  him- 
self to  that  beastly  life";  Edmund  Hall  of  Lullington 
"for  moweing  of  grasse  upon  Midsomer  day";  William 
Bagant,  of  Alfriston  "  for  that  he  is  reputed  to  be  a  usurer  "; 
William  Fox  of  Hailsham,  for  being  "  a  notorious  breaker 
of  the  Sabbath  day,  running  matches  in  the  tyme  of  divyne 
service  ";  the  wives  of  Edward  Jones,  senior,  and  Edward 
Jones,  junior,  of  Rye,  each  "  for  a  common  skold  ";  John 
Naylor  of  Slaugham  "  for  hunting  of  conies  uppon  a  Son- 
day  "; — he  confessed  that  "  he  did  hunt  conies  uppon  the 
Sonday;  but  was  at  both  morning  and  evening  prayers  the 
same  day";  Bridget  Barret  of  Wivelsfield  "for  thrusting 
of  pinnes  in  the  wife  of  John  Dumbrell  in  the  church  in 
tyme  of  divine  service,  and  for  other  irreverent  behaviour  "; 
— she  admitted  that  "  she  did  thrust  a  pinne  into  the  wife 
of  John  Dumbrell  by  reason  she  sate  downe  in  her  lap."  l 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xlix,  49-65. 


28      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

On  Laud's  elevation  to  the  archbishopric  in  1633  he 
strove  to  check  the  growing  flood  of  nonconformity  by  the 
curious  policy  of  establishing  absolute  uniformity  within 
the  Church,  without  allowing  for  the  diversity  of  the  ele- 
ments which  formed  it.  He  reported  to  the  King  in  1634: 
"  the  bishop  of  Chichester  certifies  all  well  in  his  diocese 
save  only  in  the  east  part,  which  is  far  from  him,  he  finds 
some  Puritan  Justices  of  the  Peace  have  awed  some  of  the 
clergy  into  like  opinion  with  themselves,  which  yet  of  late 
have  not  broken  out  into  any  public  nonconformity."1  In 
1635  Sir  Nathaniel  Brent,  his  vicar-general,  held  a  metro- 
politan visitation  of  the  diocese.  His  report  is  written  in  a 
humorous  vein  uncommon  in  such  documents: 

Chichester,  27th  June. — It  having  been  ordered  that  all 
should  remove  their  hats  during  divine  service,  and  that 
there  should  be  no  walking  about  or  talking  at  that  time, 
"  Mr.  Speed  of  St.  Pancras  confessed  his  error  in  being 
too  popular  in  the  pulpit;  the  mayor  and  his  brethren 
are  puritanically  addicted,  which  caused  me  to  admonish 
one  of  the  aldermen  for  putting  his  hat  on  during  the 
service." 

Arundel,  ist  July. — "  Mr.  Nye,  rector  of  Clapham,  Mr. 
Salisbury,  curate  of  Warningcamp,  Mr.  Hill,  vicar  of 
Felpham,are  so  vehemently  suspected  to  be  nonconformit- 
ants  that  although  nothing  was  proved  against  them  I 
thought  fit  to  inhibit  them  to  preach  until  I  could  be  better 
satisfied  of  them.  .  .  .  Mr.  Hill  in  the  pulpit  spake  unto 
four  of  his  neighbours  who  sat  before  him  in  one  seat  that 
he  was  certain  three  of  them  should  be  damned.  The 
fourth  was  his  friend,  and  therefore  he  saved  him, 

"John  Alberry  churchwarden  of  Arundel  having  heard 
my  charge  in  the  morning,  at  night  before  he  went  to  bed 
made  a  violent  extemporary  prayer,  and  pronounced  it  so 
loud  that  divers  in  the  street  did  hear  him; — the  effect 

1  Laud,  Autobiog.,  534;  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  32. 


PURITAN  SUSSEX  29 

was,  to  be  delivered  from  the  persecution  that  was  now 
coming  upon  them." 

Lewes,  3rd  July. — "  Mr.  Bunyard,  Maynard,  Russell  and 
Gyles  refused  to  bow  at  the  blessed  name  of  Jesus.  After 
long  conference,  and  late  at  night,  they  all  submitted,  con- 
fessing that  they  were  convinced  in  their  opinions  and  would 
hereafter  observe  the  law  of  the  Church. 

"  I  inhibited  one  Mr.  Jennings  to  preach  any  more  for 
particularising  in  the  pulpit.  He  called  one  of  his  parish- 
ioners '  arch-knave,'  and  being  questioned  by  me  answered 
that  it  was  but  a  lively  application.  The  man  abused  did 
think  he  had  been  called  '  notched  knave '  and  fell  out  with 
his  barber  who  had  lately  trimmed  him."1 

The  activity  of  Laud  stimulated  the  energies  of  the 
Bishop  of  Chichester.  In  January  1637  he  wrote  to  the 
curate  of  Rye  with  reference  to  a  report  that  had  reached 
him  from  Mr.  Norton,  one  of  the  churchwardens,  that 
against  God's  service,  honour  and  reverence  due  to  holy  and 
consecrated  places,  and  contrary  to  the  laws,  statutes  and 
canons  of  the  Church,  the  chancel  of  the  church  was  used 
as  an  arsenal,  a  prison,  and  a  place  of  execution  of  punish- 
ment. Mr.  Mark  Thomas,  the  Deputy  Mayor,  replied  that 
no  one  remembered  when  this  first  began,  but  the  south 
aisle  of  the  chancel  had  long  been  used  as  a  place  to  keep 
artillery  sent  from  the  Tower  of  London  for  the  defence  of 
the  town,  and  the  property  of  his  Majesty;  and  he  could 
not  conceive  that  this  use  had  commenced  without  the 
order  of  the  Bishop  of  Chichester  of  the  time.  Bishop 
Andrews  (1605-9),  when  he  visited  Rye,  saw  the  use  to 
which  part  of  the  chancel  was  put,  and  showed  no  dislike  of 
it.  This  was  all  the  profanation  of  the  place,  except  that 
some  "  unruly  servant "  had  been  in  times  passed  whipped 
there  by  the  Mayor's  orders.  As  for  the  complaint  made 
against  the  curate  for  omitting  to  read  the  Church  Ser- 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  1635,  pref.  xliii;  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex 
»>  33- 


30       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

vice,  and  for  preaching  sometimes  two  hours,  the  Bishop 
was  informed  that  "though  often  times  he  doth  read  the 
Litany  and  ten  commandments,  yet  sometimes  he  doth 
omit  the  reading  thereof,  through  weakness  of  body,  as  he 
saith,  and  we  truly  believe;  and  for  the  accusation  of 
preaching  two  hours  long,  we  do  assure  your  Lordship  that 
the  accusation  is  altogether  false;  for  the  mostly  he  keepeth 
himself  to  his  hour,  and  sometimes  preacheth  less  than  an 
hour."1 

An  hour  appears  to  have  been  the  regulation  length  of  a 
sermon.  Mr.  Large  of  Rotherfield  was  in  the  habit  of  "join- 
ing both  his  sermons  for  the  day  together,  and  seldom  or 
never  preached  for  less  than  two  hours."2  We  may  feel  some 
sympathy  for  Thomas  Brett  of  Cuckfield,  presented  to  the 
Archdeaconry  Court,  for  that  "he  usethe  commonly  to 
slepe  in  the  sermon  tyme." 3  Perhaps  even  "  dumdogs  "  did 
not  lack  admirers. 

The  growing  passion  for  preaching,  combined  with  im- 
patience of  the  set  services  of  the  Church,  led  to  the 
appointment  of  lecturers,  who  were  apparently  maintained 
by  the  voluntary  contributions  of  their  flocks.  This  prac- 
tice sometimes  produced  a  good  deal  of  friction,  especially 
as  regards  the  use  of  the  pulpit.  In  1623  the  Mayor  and 
Jurats  of  Rye  wrote  to  the  Bishop  of  Chichester,  stating 
that  under  leave  from  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  they 
had,  six  years  before,  set  up  a  lecture  in  their  town,  which 
had  continued  since;  that  of  late  Mr.  Whitacre,  curate  to 
their  vicar,  Mr.  Twine,  had  opposed  it  of  his  own  authority, 
and  would  not  suffer  Mr.  Warren,  the  lecturer,  to  go  into 
the  church,  "of  which  thing  we  have  thought  good  to 
certify  your  Lordship,  humbly  beseeching  that  so  worthy  a 
work,  so  much  conducing  to  the  honour  and  glory  of  God, 
may  not  be  suppressed,  but  by  your  Lordship's  leave  and 
approbation,  may  still  continue.  Yet  we  dislike  not  Mr. 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  pp.  201-2. 

2  See  post,  p.  145.  3  S.  A.  C.,  xlix,  51. 


PURITAN  SUSSEX  31 

Whitacre  for  our  curate,  but  desire  his  continuance  here, 
for  we  hold  him  a  sufficient  preacher;  who,  being  your 
Lordship's  chaplain,  you  can  a  great  deal  better  judge  of 
his  learning  than  we."  J  The  last  sentence  seems  a  very 
pretty  piece  of  studied  impertinence.  An  unseemly  dis- 
turbance took  place  in  the  church,  and  the  matter  found  its 
way  to  the  Archdeaconry  Court.2 

After  the  outbreak  of  war  these  lecturers  sometimes 
obtained  the  benefices  of  ejected  ministers.3 

The  Laudian  revival  came  too  late,  and  proceeded  by 
wrong  methods.  It  was  a  hopeless  task  to  dragoon  into 
conformity  within  narrow  limits  the  seething  elements  of 
religious  enthusiasms  arising  out  of  the  new  found  study  of 
the  Bible.  The  movement  was  confined  to  no  particular 
class.  If  our  information  as  to  the  feelings  of  the  labouring 
class,  which  did  not  seriously  count  in  practical  affairs,  is 
small,  we  know  that  the  yeomen  and  farmers  of  the  county, 
the  burgesses  and  tradesfolk  of  the  towns,  were  ripe  for  a 
religious  revolt.  Apart  from  a  few  old  Catholic  families, 
whose  sufferings  had  but  confirmed  their  faith,  the  county 
gentry  were  Calvinist  almost  to  a  man ; 4  the  Elizabethan 
struggle  with  Spain  had  made  Protestantism  a  patriotic 
virtue.  In  East  Sussex  the  Puritan  feeling  of  the  Justices 
of  the  Peace  was  so  strong  that  the  moderately  disposed 
were  not  able  to  withstand  it.  At  the  Michaelmas  Quarter 
Sessions  of  1639  Mr.  Stapley,  supported  by  Messrs.  Rivers, 
Baker,  and  Hayes,  delivered  himself  in  his  charge  of  the 
opinion  that  the  altering  of  the  Communion  table  altar- 
wise  was  an  innovation  detracting  from  God's  glory.  Mr. 
White,  a  justice,  asked  Mr.  Stapley  after  the  charge  was 
done  what  he  meant  by  meddling  there  with  that  business, 
which  the  bench  had  nothing  to  do  with;  to  which  Mr. 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  pp.  162,  170. 

3  S.  A.  C.,  xlix,  60. 

3  See  the  case  of  Mr.  Chatfield  at  Horsham,  post,  p.  137. 

4  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  xlvi. 


32       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Stapley  answered  that  he  was  so  pressed  by  other  men  to 
do  it  that  he  could  not  deny  them.  "  The  town  of  Lewes," 
wrote  Dr.  Edward  Burton  from  Westham  to  Dr.  Bray, 
chaplain  to  the  Archbishop,  "  as  well  as  the  Sessions  house, 
is  tainted  with  him,  for  at  this  present,  notwithstanding  the 
Earl  of  Dorset's  and  Lord  Goring's  letter  and  intimations 
for  their  creatures  to  be  parliament  men,  yet  Mr.  Stapley 
and  Mr.  Rivers  have  a  strong  party  in  the  town,  and  it  is 
much  feared  that  they  will  be  chosen  burgesses  for  the 
town  of  Lewes.  Lord  forbid  the  greater  part  of  a  parlia- 
ment should  be  of  their  stamp,  if  so  Lord  have  mercy  upon 
our  Church.  God,  who  knows  my  heart,  knows  it  is  not 
them  I  except  against  but  their  condition." l 

What  the  Laudian  revival  failed  to  do,  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment in  some  measure  effected.  "  It  singled  out  the 
Royalist  gentlemen  and  the  anti-Calvinist  clergyman  for 
special  penalties,  with  the  result  that  every  Royalist  gentle- 
man became  not  only  a  sworn  foe  to  Puritanism,  but  a 
reverent  admirer  of  doctrines  and  practices  which  ten 
years  before  he  had  pronounced  to  be  detestable.  Com- 
munity of  suffering  draws  friends  more  closely  together 
than  community  of  enjoyment." 2 

England  was  now  to  reap  in  pain  and  tribulation  the 
crop  sown  by  the  unwisdom  of  her  rulers,  temporal  and 
spiritual.  The  part  to  be  taken  by  Sussex  in  the  harvesting 
was  determined  mainly  by  the  direction  in  which  for  two 
or  three  generations  the  religious  opinions  of  an  ever 
increasing  number  of  the  inhabitants  had  been  tending. 
From  the  sacrifice  of  many  lives,  from  the  ruin  of  many 
homes,  was  to  spring  some  germ  of  that  tolerance  of  hostile 
opinion  which  was  inconceivable  to  both  parties  at  the 
opening  of  the  struggle,  but  is  essential  to  the  idea  of 
citizenship  in  our  less  self-confident  age. 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  ccccxlii,  137. 
3  Gardiner,  loc,  cit. 


CHAPTER  III 

PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER 

ON  the  22nd  of  August  1642,  in  cloud  and  storm,  King 
Charles  raised  the  Royal  Standard  at  Nottingham 
and  formally  opened  the  Civil  War.  The  full  significance 
of  this  step  was  perhaps  not  generally  understood.  It  was 
almost  universally  supposed  that  the  issue  of  a  single  field 
would  decide  the  contest.  The  gallant  gentlemen  with  the 
King  believed  that  they  had  only  to  ride  over  the  trained 
bands  to  bring  His  Majesty  back  in  triumph  to  London; 
the  parliamentarians  thought  they  had  only  to  show  their 
mettle  to  reduce  him  to  submission  on  the  constitutional 
points  at  issue.  Yet  there  were  old  soldiers  among  the 
leaders  on  both  sides  who  had  seen  service  with  the  Swedes 
and  the  Dutch,  and  who  knew  that  once  a  shot  is  fired  in 
anger,  differences  are  less  easily  composed  than  before; 
knew,  too,  that  open  war  was  not  a  child's  play,  but  a  stern 
and  serious  business.  In  such  a  spirit  did  the  veteran  Sir 
Jacob  Astley  pray  before  Edgehill :  "  O  Lord,  Thou  know 
how  busy  I  must  be  this  day.  If  I  forget  Thee,  do  not 
Thou  forget  me.  March  on,  boys!  " l 

Before  battle  is  joined,  a  word  as  to  the  constitution  of 
the  forces  shortly  to  be  engaged  may  not  be  out  of  place. 
Since  the  close  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War  with  France, 
the  nation  had  become  very  unmilitary.  Each  county 
possessed  "  trained  bands  "  drawn  from  those  liable  to  serve 
in  the  old  militia,  but  they  were  only  drilled  one  day  a 

1  Warwick's  Memoirs,  p.  229. 
D 


34       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

month ;  they  could  not  be  compelled  to  serve  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  their  own  counties,  and  could  seldom  be 
induced  to  do  so,  except  for  some  temporary  purpose.  The 
only  trained  bands  which  possessed  any  efficiency  were 
those  of  the  City  of  London,  consisting  chiefly  of  appren- 
tices, from  whose  close-shorn  heads  the  nickname  of 
"  Roundheads  "  took  its  rise.1  These  bands  speedily  be- 
came the  best  infantry  that  either  side  possessed,  though 
the  King's  foot,  derived  from  the  mountainous  parts  of  the 
kingdom — Wales,  Cornwall,  and  the  north — were  remark- 
able for  strength  and  endurance.  The  trained  bands  as 
units  being  unsuited  for  general  campaigning,  enlistment 
and  impressment  were  speedily  resorted  to.  The  ordinary 
pay  of  8</.  a  day  (about  $s.  ^d.  in  present  value)  was 
slightly  higher  than  the  current  rate  of  agricultural  wages ; 
but  it  was  subject  to  deductions  for  food,  and  was  con- 
stantly in  arrear. 

The  infantry  were  divided  into  two  classes,  the  pikemen 
and  the  musketeers.  They  stood  in  ranks  six  deep;  the 
musketeers  of  each  rank  having  fired  their  pieces  (with 
barrels  four  feet  long  and  so  heavy  that  they  had  to  be 
fired  from  a  crutch),  fell  back  to  reload.  They  wore  no 
armour,  and  when  charged  retired  behind  the  pikemen,  who 
were  protected  by  a  half  cuirass  of  steel  and  a  steel  cap 
over  a  leather  bonnet.  Both  classes  were  very  heavily 
laden,  and  thirteen  miles  a  day  was  considered  the  limit  of 
their  marching  powers.  This  was  exceeded  on  occasion,  as 
during  Waller's  march  to  Arundel  in  1643. 

But  the  issue  of  the  war  was  to  depend  on  cavalry.  At 
the  outset  strenuous  efforts  were  made  by  the  gentlemen 
on  both  sides  to  raise  troops  of  horse,  in  Sussex  notably  by 
Sir  Edward  Ford  for  the  King,  and  by  Colonel  Herbert 
Morley  for  the  Parliament;  some,  such  as  Sir  William 
Springate,  spent  their  whole  fortune  in  this  service.  The 

1  See  however  a  recent  discussion  in  Notes  and  Queries,  nth  S. 
i,  187,  etc. 


PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER  35 

proportion  of  cavalry  to  infantry  in  the  armies  of  the 
seventeenth  century  was  far  greater  than  in  modern  times ; 
in  1646  it  was  laid  down  by  an  expert  that  there  should  be 
one  horseman  for  every  two  footmen.  At  the  outset  the 
Royalists  were  far  stronger  in  cavalry  than  the  Parlia- 
mentarians; Essex  in  July  1643  complained  that  "the 
enemy's  chief  strength  being  in  horse,  and  this  army  neither 
recruited  with  horses  nor  arms  nor  saddles,  it  is  impossible 
to  keep  the  country  from  being  plundered;  nor  to  fight 
with  them  but  when  and  where  they  list;  we  being  forced, 
when  we  move,  to  march  with  the  whole  army,  which  can 
be  but  by  slow  marches;  so  that  the  country  suffers  much 
wrong,  and  the  cries  of  the  poor  people  are  infinite."  '  Per- 
haps the  evil  reputation  for  plundering  which  the  Royalist 
cavalry,  especially  under  Rupert,  soon  obtained,  was  due 
in  part  to  their  superior  numbers. 

In  the  Civil  War  the  cavalry  consisted  chiefly  of  two 
classes,  harquebusiers  and  dragoons.  The  heavily  armed 
cuirassier  was  becoming  obsolete,  owing  to  the  difficulty  of 
finding  both  men  and  horses  equal  to  the  weight  of  his 
cumbrous  armour,  and  the  light  horseman  wearing  a  coat 
of  mail  and  armed  with  a  spear  had  disappeared.  The 
harquebusier — originally  a  foot  soldier  armed  with  a  cross- 
bow— had  become  a  horseman  armed  with  a  carbine.  The 
dragoons  were  simply  mounted  infantry.2 

Artillery  was  considered  indispensable  for  sieges,  but  of 
no  great  use  in  battles.  The  Parliament  enjoyed  a  great 
advantage  in  the  possession  of  the  forges  of  Sussex  and 
Kent,  especially  those  of  the  Brownes  at  Brede  and  Horse- 
monden,  on  which  they  relied  almost  entirely  for  guns  both 
for  the  army  and  the  navy.3  Artillery  for  the  Royalist 
armies  was  chiefly  imported  from  France  and  Holland. 

1  Old  Parliamentary  History,  xii,  328. 

*  For  a  full  account  of  this  subject  see  Cromwell's  Army,  by  Pro- 
fessor Firth,  London,  1902. 
3  See  fast,  p.  176. 


36       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Four  or  five  different  kinds  of  field  guns  were  employed. 
The  heaviest  piece  commonly  used  was  the  culverin,  dis- 
charging a  ball  of  from  sixteen  to  twenty  pounds  in  weight, 
which  carried  point  blank  about  400  paces,  and  had  an 
extreme  range  of  about  2,000  paces.  The  demi-culverin, 
more  frequently  employed,  fired  a  ball  of  nine  to  twelve 
pounds,  and  had  a  somewhat  lower  range.  The  lighter 
pieces  were  called  sakers,  minions,  and  drakes.  The  saker 
fired  a  ball  of  about  five  pounds,  the  minion  one  of  three 
and  a  half  pounds,  the  drake  was  a  three-pounder  or  less. 

The  opening  proceedings  of  the  war  were  attempts  by 
both  sides  to  secure  control  of  the  existing  militia  organiza- 
tion. The  King  issued  his  Commissions  of  Array,  the  Par- 
liament its  Militia  Ordinance,  to  the  leaders  of  the  trained 
bands,  and  throughout  England  both  parties  endeavoured 
to  secure  possession  of  the  county  magazines  in  which  the 
arms  and  ammunition  of  the  trained  bands  were  stored.1 
The  struggle  at  Chichester,  about  to  be  related,  was  a 
typical  instance  of  these  efforts.  The  indecisive  result  of 
the  first  years  of  warfare  was  chiefly  due  to  the  insufficiency 
for  the  purposes  of  a  campaign  of  the  trained  bands,  which 
continually  refused  to  fight  far  from  their  homes.  When  it 
came  to  the  creation  of  professional  armies,  the  resources 
and  intelligence  of  the  Parliamentary  leaders  prevailed — 
the  New  Model  represented  the  evolution  of  an  efficient 
army  out  of  the  pre-existent  chaos. 

In  June  the  King  had  issued  from  his  head-quarters  at 
York  a  proclamation  prohibiting  the  execution  of  the  Par- 
liamentary Militia  Ordinance;  and  this  proclamation  had 
even  been  publicly  read  in  the  City  of  London  by  order  of 
the  Lord  Mayor.  It  was  also  read  at  Chichester  by  order 
of  the  Mayor,  Robert  Exton ; 2  who,  on  being  summoned 
by  Parliament  to  give  an  account  of  the  matter,  fled  to  join 

1  A  statute  of  James  I  had  established  a  magazine  of  arms  and 
powder  for  each  county. 

2  Not  Eaton,  as  in  S.  A.  C.,  v,  37. 


GEORGE  GORING. 


PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER          37 

the  King.  On  28th  July  James  Gresham  wrote  from 
Chichester  to  his  brother-in-law,  Sir  Poynings  More:  "  The 
Mayor  was  sent  for  up  to  the  Parliament  about  proclaym- 
ing  the  proclamation  my  lord  mayor  is  questioned  for,  and 
I  heare  hee  hath  mistaken  his  way  and  is  gone  to  Yorke."1 

It  is  probable  that  Charles  was  driven  to  his  decisive 
step  at  Nottingham  by  the  precipitate  action  of  Colonel 
Goring,  who  was  holding  Portsmouth,  ostensibly  in  the 
interest  of  the  Parliament.  This  George  Goring  was  the 
son  of  George  Goring  of  Danny,  who  was  created  Baron 
Goring  of  Hurstpierpoint  in  1632,  and  later  advanced  to 
the  earldom  of  Norwich.  The  father  played  an  active  and 
honourable  part  throughout  the  Civil  War,  and  ruined  his 
fortunes  in  the  King's  service;  the  son  incurred  the  un- 
measured censure  alike  of  Cavaliers  and  Roundheads. 
Clarendon  does  not  mince  words:  "  Portsmouth  was  at  the 
time  of  the  raising  of  the  Standard  held  for  the  King  by 
one  whose  course  from  first  to  last,  devious,  uncertain,  and 
unprincipled,  shed  disgrace  upon  the  nobleness  of  his  name 
and  upon  the  honourable  profession  of  a  soldier.  This  man 
was  Goring,  than  whom,  on  account  of  his  private  vices  of 
drunkenness,  cruelty  and  rapacity,  and  of  his  political 
timidity  and  treachery,  scarcely  anyone  was  more  unworthy 
to  be  trusted  with  any  important  matters  for  counsel  or 
execution." 

For  some  time  past  Goring  had  been  intriguing  with 
both  parties.  He  had  been  one  of  the  witnesses  against 
Strafford.  He  had  betrayed  the  royal  "  army  plot"  of  1641 
to  the  Parliament ; 2  and  in  the  same  year,  while  hold- 
ing Portsmouth,  which  was  then  the  strongest  position 
in  the  kingdom,  as  he  pretended  for  the  Parliament,  he 
had  offered  it  to  the  Queen  as  a  place  of  refuge.  Some 
report  of  his  proceedings  having  reached  London  the  Par- 
liament ordered  his  attendance  there,  it  being  half  expected 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  vii,  677. 

-  For  his  examination  see  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  20. 


38       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

that  he  would  not  comply.  But  he  "came  upon  the  summons 
with  that  undauntedness  that  all  clouds  of  distrust  imme- 
diately vanished  insomuch  as  no  man  presumed  to  whisper 
the  least  jealousy  of  him." l  And  he  stood  up  and  spoke 
"  with  a  countenance  full  of  modesty  and  yet  not  without 
a  certain  mixture  of  anger  "  to  such  persuasive  effect  that 
not  only  was  he  confirmed  by  the  whole  House  in  his  com- 
mand, but  was  privately  assured  that  he  should  be  Lieu- 
ten  ant-General  of  their  Horse  in  their  new  army  when  it 
should  be  formed.  Shortly  before  the  outbreak  of  war  he 
received  large  sums  from  both  parties  to  be  spent  on  im- 
proving the  fortifications  of  the  town,  most  of  which  he  is 
accused  of  having  gambled  away. 

On  2nd  August  1642  Goring  openly  declared  for  the 
King,  and  tendered  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Mayor 
and  Aldermen  of  Portsmouth.  The  Parliament  acted  with 
promptitude.  The  Earl  of  Warwick  was  ordered  to  blockade 
the  harbour  with  five  ships,  the  Militia  was  embodied,  and 
preparations  were  made  for  an  attack  on  the  land  side  by 
Sir  William  Waller.  Goring  had  done  little  to  put  the  town 
in  a  posture  of  defence,  and  had  trusted  to  obtaining  pro- 
visions from  the  Isle  of  Wight.  But  he  had  neglected  to 
secure  the  small  castles  and  blockhouses  which  guarded  the 
passage,  and  the  island  having  declared  for  the  Parliament 
he  was  soon  in  extremity. 

"It  gave,"  says  Clarendon,  "  no  small  reputation  to  his 
Majesty's  affairs,  when  there  was  so  great  a  damp  upon  the 
spirits  of  men,  from  the  misadventures  at  Beverley,  that  so 
notable  a  place  as  Portsmouth  had  declared  for  him  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war."  It  must  have  come  with  the  greater 
shock  to  the  King  to  learn  immediately  after  he  had  raised 
his  standard  that  Goring,  whom  he  might  reasonably  have 
supposed  capable  of  holding  out  for  three  or  four  months 
against  any  attacking  force,  was  on  the  point  of  surrender. 

1  Clarendon,  v,  440. 


PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER          39 

The  position  of  affairs  at  Chichester  was  closely  connected 
with  that  at  Portsmouth.  The  sympathies  of  the  city  were 
Puritan,  but  certain  of  the  West  Sussex  gentry  with  the 
clergy  of  the  Cathedral  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  Royalist 
party,  which  endeavoured  without  delay  to  aid  the  defenders 
of  Portsmouth.1  On  ipth  August  the  Recorder,  Mr.  Chris- 
topher Lewknor,2  with  Sir  William  Morley,  Sir  Thomas 
Bowyer,  and  others  demanded  the  city  magazine  for  the  ser- 
vice of  the  King.  Captain  Chittey,  an  officer  of  the  trained 
bands,  refused  to  surrender  it,  and  set  a  strong  guard.  Many 
attempts  were  made  to  get  supplies  and  letters  into  Ports- 
mouth, but  Waller's  soldiers  were  active  in  stopping  com- 
munications. A  woman  was  apprehended  carrying  what 
appeared  to  be  a  baby,  but  proved  to  be  a  bundle  of  letters. 
One  Mr.  Bellingham,3  a  young  gentleman,  rode  fully  armed 
from  Chichester  to  Portsmouth.  He  afterwards  tried  to 
make  his  escape  from  the  garrison,  keeping  a  boat  in 
readiness,  for  which  he  paid  5^.  per  diem.4 

On  24th  August  Chichester,  under  the  leadership  of 
William  Cawley,  a  rich  brewer,  and  one  of  the  members 
for  Midhurst,  declared  openly  for  the  Parliament,  but  the 
Royalists  continued  to  intrigue,  and  the  Cathedral  clergy 
used  the  power  of  the  pulpit  energetically  on  their  behalf. 
They  also  raised  a  body  of  light  horse  which  was  drilled 
daily  in  the  Cathedral  close,  and  "  Dr.  Hinsham,5  a  Pre- 
bendary," succeeded  in  sending  a  load  of  wheat  to  the 

1  Godwin's  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  vi. 

-  "  The  man  appointed  by  his  Majesty  to  take  in  money  and  plate 
on  his  behalfe"  (Warwick's  Memoirs,  p.  273).  S.  A.  C.,  v,  33. 

3  Probably  Thomas,  son  of  Sir  Edward  Bellingham,  of  Newtimber. 

4  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  vi. 

5  Probably   Doctor  Joseph   Henshaw,  Canon   of  Chichester,   and 
brother  of  Thomas  Henshaw  of  Basset's  Fee,  in  Billingshurst,  a  dis- 
tinguished royalist,  nominated  by  Charles  II  at  the  Restoration  to  be 
a  knight  of  his  proposed  Order  of  the  Royal  Oak.    He  accompanied 
Charles  II  into  exile.  At  the  Restoration  he  became  Dean  of  Chichester, 
and  in  1663  Bishop  of  Peterborough  (see  Lower's  Worthies  of  Sussex, 
p.  294). 


40       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Portsmouth  garrison.  Though  no  actual  collision  took 
place  in  the  city  at  this  time,  the  relations  of  the  citizens 
must  have  been  severely  strained. 

On  the  night  of  Saturday  4th  September,  Colonel  Norton, 
the  Parliamentary  leader,  took  by  assault  Southsea  Castle, 
reputed  to  be  the  strongest  fort  in  England  for  its  size. 
Immediately  afterwards  Goring  surrendered  on  terms,  in 
the  settlement  of  which  Christopher  Lewknor  was  employed. 
The  terms  were  the  more  favourable  as  the  Parliamentarians 
were  very  much  afraid  that  Goring  would  execute  his  threat 
of  blowing  up  the  powder  magazines  in  the  town.  The 
garrison  were  to  have  free  passes  to  any  place  except  to  an 
army  in  arms  against  the  Parliament.  Goring  himself  took 
ship  to  Holland,  whence  he  shortly  returned  to  join  the 
King's  forces  at  Newcastle. 

The  loss  of  Portsmouth  was  not  only  a  severe  blow  to 
the  King's  cause  in  general,  but  it  damped  for  the  present 
the  rising  hopes  of  the  Royalist  party  in  West  Sussex.  In 
East  Sussex  the  Parliament  was  having  its  own  way  with- 
out opposition.  Colonel  Herbert  Morley  of  Glynde  was 
perhaps  the  man  of  greatest  influence  in  the  county  during 
this  period,  and  his  vigilance  and  activity  on  behalf  of  the 
Parliamentary  cause  were  unceasing  throughout  the  war. 
Even  before  the  commencement  of  hostilities  he  had  been 
making  his  preparations.  By  an  order  of  the  House,  dated 
ist  July  1642,  Mr.  Cordell  was  directed  to  sell  unto  Mr. 
Morley  twenty  barrels  of  powder  for  the  service  and  defence 
of  the  county  of  Sussex.  In  October  it  was  ordered  "  that 
Mr.  Morley  do  go  with  this  message  to  the  Lords,  to  desire 
their  lordships  to  hasten  the  passing  the  instructions  for  the 
county  of  Sussex;  and  the  clerk  is  ordered  to  give  Mr. 
Morley  a  copy  of  the  names  already  sent  up,  to  the  end  a 
further  addition  of  names  may  be  added."  In  November l 
"  Mr.  Morley  carried  up  to  the  Lords  the  order  for  provid- 

1  House  of  Commons  Journals,  i8th  November  1642. 


PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER         41 

ing  for  the  safety  of  the  town  of  Lewes."  This  has  reference 
to  two  previous  orders  of  the  House.  (i)"That  Captain 
Ambrose  Trayton  shall  have  power  to  call  in  two  hundred 
men,  or  more  if  occasion  shall  be,  into  the  town  of  Lewes, 
volunteers  or  others,  and  to  command  the  same  for  the 
defence  of  the  said  town  ";  (2)  "That  the  receivers  of  the 
propositions,  money  and  plate,  raised  in  the  town  of  Lewes, 
shall  detain  in  their  hands  a  fifth  part  of  the  said  monies 
and  plate  to  be  employed  for  the  defence  of  the  said  town." 
On  ist  December  it  was  ordered  "That  Mr.  Morley  do 
return  thanks  from  this  House  to  Captain  Springate,  and 
other  Captains  of  the  county  of  Sussex  that  have  ex- 
pressed their  affection  to  the  King  and  Parliament,  in 
raising  of  forces  for  the  preservation  of  the  peace  of  the 
said  county." 

At  this  time  four  pieces  of  iron  ordnance  which  had 
been  sent  to  Newhaven  and  Brighthelmstone  in  1 597  were 
returned  to  Lewes ;  and  of  the  three  barrels  of  powder  that 
had  been  kept  in  the  town-house,  one  was  sent  to  the  Cliffe, 
one  to  Brighthelmstone,  and  one  to  Rottingdean.1 

A  matter  which  engaged  attention  at  an  early  date  was 
the  securing  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  the  supervision  of  pass- 
engers to  and  from  the  Continent,  and  the  prevention  of 
the  landing  of  foreign  troops.  These  points  having  been 
considered  by  Parliament  in  the  middle  of  August,2  they 
were  left  to  the  care  of  Colonel  Morley. 

The  King's  advance  towards  London  after  the  battle  of 
Edgehill,  on  23rd  October,  which  caused  such  lively  appre- 
hension in  the  capital,  produced  similar  fears  in  Sussex. 
The  Royalists  under  Prince  Rupert  had  already  acquired 
an  evil  reputation  for  indiscriminate  plundering.  "Such 
was  the  care  of  the  towns-men,  yea,  and  of  the  cathedral 
men  too  (having  heard  of  their  plundering  at  Brainford) 
that  they  put  themselves  in  armes,  and  out  of  their  sub- 

1  Lewes  Town  Records. 

2  Perfect  Diurnall,  15-22  August,  1642.   S.  A.  C.,  v,  32. 


42       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

scribed  monies  maintained  a  considerable  strength." l  Early 
in  November  the  inhabitants  of  Chichester  under  William 
Cawley,  Edward  Higgons,  and  Henry  Chittey,  having  ob- 
tained permission  from  Parliament  to  fortify  the  city,  pro- 
cured guns  and  gunpowder  from  Portsmouth. 

On  the  2 ist  the  House  passed  an  Ordinance  "that  Mr. 
Morley,  Mr.  Stapley,  Sir  Thomas  Pelham,  and  Sir  Thomas 
Parker,  deputy-lieutenants  for  Sussex,  Members  of  the 
House,  should  be  sent  down  to  put  that  County  into  the 
like  posture  of  defence  as  is  Kent,  and  to  disarme  all 
such  as  shall  refuse  to  joyne  with  them  in  securing  the 
County."2 

The  King  had  endeavoured  to  detach  the  county  from 
the  Parliamentary  leaders  by  a  proclamation  issued  at 
Reading  on  /th  November,  offering  his  Majesty's  grace, 
favour,  and  pardon  to  the  inhabitants  of  his  county  of 
Sussex,  with  the  exception  of  Herbert  Morley,  Esq.,  and 
Henry  Chittey,  citizen  of  Chichester.3  This  had  no  effect. 
But  in  Chichester  the  Puritan  party  was  not  to  have  it  all 
its  own  way.  The  Royalist  leaders  were  doubtless  driven 
to  action  by  the  fact  that  Parliament  had  declared  that  the 
Commission  of  Array  which  had  been  sent  down  by  the 
King  to  Sir  Edward  Ford,4  the  High  Sheriff,  was  illegal, 
and  had  ordered  the  immediate  arrest  of  Ford  himself.  On 
the  night  of  the  I5th  of  November,  the  Royalist  gentry 
assembled  in  the  town  in  considerable  numbers,  and  under 
pretence  of  assisting  to  maintain  order  got  possession  of  it. 
They  forced  the  Mayor  to  deliver  up  the  keys,  and  possessed 
themselves  of  the  guns  and  magazine.  The  Parliamentary 
leaders  fled  to  Portsmouth,  and  next  day  Sir  Edward  Ford 
with  a  numerous  force,  consisting  of  the  trained  bands  of 
the  county  and  100  horse,  marched  into  the  city.  Being 
apprehensive  as  to  the  loyalty  of  the  trained  bands,  he 

1  Perfect  Diurnall,  Nos.  15-22.  z  Ibid.,  15-22  November. 

3  Broadsheet  in  B.M.,  pressmark  669,  f.  5  (97). 

4  Dallaway,  i,  cxxix. 


PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER          43 

caused  them  to  be  disarmed.  A  small  force  sent  by  the 
governor  of  Portsmouth  failed  to  retake  the  city. 

As  soon  as  the  news  reached  Parliament  such  members 
as  were  concerned  with  Ford  in  the  affair  were  expelled 
the  House.1  They  were  the  two  M.P.'s  for  Chichester,  Sir 
W.  Morley  and  Christopher  Lewknor,  Sir  T.  Bowyer,  M.P. 
for  Bramber,  Thomas  Leeds,  M.P.  for  Steyning,  and  Thomas 
May,  M.P.  for  Midhurst. 

The  report  of  these  proceedings  at  Chichester,  sent  from 
Portsmouth  to  the  Speaker  Lenthall  by  Cawley  and  his 
associates,  is  a  very  lucid  and  interesting  document.2 

EDWARD  HIGGONS,  WILLIAM  CAWLEY  AND  HENRY 
CHITTEY  TO  WILLIAM  LENTHALL. 

Portsmouth, 

November  21,  1642. 

"On  Tuesday  last,  being  the  i$th  of  this  month,  we 
called  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  City  of  Chichester  together 
there,  to  let  them  understand  wherefore  we  had  fortified 
the  city,  which  was  to  defend  ourselves  from  being  plun- 
dered by  the  King's  army,  and  to  know  if  they  would  all 
join  with  us  to  secure  one  another  from  being  destroyed  by 
them.  There  was  a  general  assent  in  it,  not  one  contradict- 
ing, but  with  several  vows  and  protestations  resolved  to 
live  and  die  in  it.  Upon  which  agreement  we  went  out  of 
the  Town  Hall  where  the  meeting  was.  When  we  came 
into  the  street  we  perceived  some  swords  drawn  at  the 
north  gate  of  the  city — where  one  of  the  guns  we  had  from 
Portsmouth  was  placed — which  swords  were  drawn  against 
the  gunner.  We  endeavoured  to  pacify  the  rage  of  the 
people,  but  we  could  not,  but  they  then  overthrew  the  gun 
off  from  his  carriage  and  possessed  themselves  of  him,  and 
from  thence  they  went  to  the  other  parts  of  the  city  where 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  37. 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  72. 


44       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  other  guns  were  placed  and  possessed  themselves  of 
them  also.  When  this  was  done  the  chiefest  gentlemen  in 
and  about  the  city  gave  countenance  to  those  that  did  this. 

"  After  this  the  same  night  came  Sir  John  Morley,  Mr. 
Robert  Anderson,  Mr.  William  Wray,  and  Mr.  Francis 
Shallett  to  the  Mayor  and  demanded  of  him  that  Sir  John 
Morley  and  twenty  other  gentlemen  of  the  town  might 
watch  that  night.  The  Mayor  was  unwilling  to  consent 
unto  it,  but  they  pretending  it  was  for  the  settling  of  the 
town  in  quiet  and  to  allay  the  fury  of  the  common  people, 
upon  this  it  was  agreed  that  there  should  watch  twenty  of 
the  gentlemen  and  twenty  of  the  citizens,  and  that  Sir  John 
Morley  should  have  the  command  of  the  gentlemen  and 
Mr.  Higgons  of  the  citizens,  and  that  the  keys  of  the  city 
should  be  delivered  to  the  Mayor.  But  when  it  came  to 
the  setting  of  the  watch,  there  were  at  least  thirty  of  the 
gentlemen  and  near  fifty  of  the  meaner  sort  of  people 
gathered  together,  and  Mr.  Higgons  demanding  of  Sir 
John  Morley  that  there  might  be  but  twenty  gentlemen 
watch  and  that  the  others  should  depart  to  their  several 
homes.  Sir  John  answered  that  it  was  not  safe  for  him  to 
speak  and  wished  him  to  be  quiet  and  denied  that  any 
should  be  discharged.  He  then  gained  the  city  keys  into 
his  hands  and  would  not  deliver  them,  but  said  they  should 
be  kept  for  the  King. 

"  Upon  the  first  combustion  in  the  town  there  was  a 
messenger  dispatched  to  the  High  Sheriff  to  acquaint  him 
how  the  state  of  the  city  stood,  and  to  desire  him  to  come 
thither  and  he  should  have  free  entrance.  Upon  this  the 
Sheriff  made  warrants  to  the  several  Trained  Bands  that 
they  should  appear  within  half  a  mile  of  the  city  and  aid 
him  to  go  into  it  the  next  morning  at  9  o'clock,  at  which 
time  the  Sheriff  accompanied  with  a  hundred  horse  met  the 
Trained  Bands  and  so  marched  into  the  city,  where  when 
he  came  he  commanded  the  Mayor  to  proclaim  the  pro- 
clamation of  pardon  to  all  the  county  except  Herbert 


PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER          45 

Morley,  Esq.,  and  Henry  Chittey,  citizen.  The  Mayor 
refusing  they  forced  him  to  go  to  the  Cross,  and  then  the 
Sheriff  commanded  the  Proclamation  to  be  proclaimed. 
After  that  was  done  he  made  search  in  diverse  well-affected 
persons'  houses  for  arms  and  all  they  found  they  seized  and 
took  away,  and  put  the  Commission  of  Array  in  execution, 
and  displaced  Captain  Chittey  and  in  his  place  put  Sir  John 
Morley.  Then  Nicholas  Wolfe  took  the  charge  of  Captain 
Oglander's  band  and  so  settled  the  Commission  of  Array. 
To  countenance  and  attend  the  Sheriff  in  this  action  there 
was  Sir  William  Forde,  Sir  William  Morley,  who  hath  sent 
the  Sheriff  four  horses  completely  furnished  for  war,  Sir 
John  Morley,  Sir  Edward  Bishopp,  Thomas  Leedes,  one  of 
your  House,  who  is  made  Captain  of  the  horse  for  Arundel 
Rape — Sir  Thomas  Bowyer  hath  sent  a  horse — Robert  An- 
derson a  lawyer,  Nicholas  Wolfe  a  Justice  of  the  Peace, 
Francis  Shallett,  William  May,  Thomas  Gunter,  who  was 
[in  command  of]  a  troop  in  Portsmouth  with  Colonel 
Goring,  John  Apsley,  William  Rishton,  two  of  Mr.  Robert 
Heath's  sons,  Francis  Pury,  George  Gunter,  Philip  King 
the  Bishop's  brother,  and  John  King  the  Bishop's  son,  and 
Edward  Osborne  with  divers  others.  They  have  seized  the 
magazine  which  was  for  the  county  as  likewise  ten  barrels 
of  powder  we  had  from  Portsmouth  by  order  from  the 
Parliament. 

"  Upon  Wednesday  we  came  to  Portsmouth  and  addressed 
ourselves  to  the  Governor  and  the  Committee  making  them 
acquainted  in  what  condition  we  were,  and  how  the  guns 
and  powder  which  we  had  from  the  Governor  were  wrested 
from  us.  The  Governor  being  very  sensible  of  the  affront 
to  the  Parliament  and  to  himself,  and  apprehending  that  if 
there  were  some  expedition  used  in  the  business  it  would 
be  very  feasible  to  regain  the  guns  and  powder,  so  that  it 
were  done  before  the  Sheriff  could  call  in  the  country,  and 
to  that  purpose  he  despatched  Captain  Swanley  and  Captain 
Winnford  with  seamen  and  landsmen  upon  the  Thursday 


46       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

to  effect  that  service,  but  it  pleased  God  so  to  turn  the 
wind  that  they  could  not  gain  the  harbour  that  night.  The 
next  day  they  gained  the  harbour,  but  before  they  could 
come  near  the  place  they  intended  to  land  the  tide  fell,  so 
that  they  could  get  no  further  that  night  than  an  island 
called  Thorney.  When  Captain  Swanley  found  how  con- 
trary the  wind  had  been  to  him  he  dispatched  away  his 
lieutenant  with  a  trumpeter  to  demand  the  guns  and 
powder  of  the  Mayor,  or  any  others  that  had  the  charge  of 
them  at  Chichester.  When  the  lieutenant  came  there 
demanding  where  the  Mayor  was  it  was  answered  he  was 
not  to  be  spoken  with,  and  they  told  him  he  must  go  to  the 
governor  of  the  city,  by  which  name  the  Sheriff  was  styled. 
He  delivered  his  message :  the  answer  was  that  he  had  a 
command  from  the  King  to  detain  the  guns  and  powder  to 
his  use,  and  until  he  had  a  command  from  the  King  to 
deliver  them  he  would  keep  them.  With  this  answer  the 
lieutenant  returned  to  Captain  Swanley,  informing  him 
likewise  how  the  city  was  up  in  arms,  and  that  he  conceived 
there  were  eight  hundred  or  a  thousand  soldiers  in  the  city. 
Upon  this  Captain  Swanley  and  Captain  Winnford  took 
into  consideration  whether  it  were  fit  for  them  being  not 
above  two  hundred  strong  to  venture  into  the  city  or  no. 
In  the  close  they  resolved  the  Governor  of  Portsmouth 
should  be  made  acquainted  with  the  proceedings,  as  like- 
wise to  inform  him  what  they  heard  the  strength  of  the 
city  was,  which  was  that  they  had  near  a  hundred  horse 
and  a  thousand  foot.  The  Governor  being  informed  of  these 
passages  and  knowing  of  what  consequence  Portsmouth 
is  to  the  kingdom,  and  what  a  weakening  it  would  be  to 
the  town  if  he  should  lose  either  landsmen  or  seamen, 
therefore  gave  directions  that  the  captains  and  their  men 
should  return  back  to  Portsmouth. 

"  The  Sheriff,  having  intelligence  that  there  was  some 
forces  coming  against  himself  from  Portsmouth,  made  his 
warrants  to  all  the  country  near  the  city,  and  commanded 


PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER          47 

all  men  instantly  to  repair  to  Chichester  upon  pain  of  death 
or  of  being  plundered,  pretending  Prince  Robert  was  com- 
ing and  that  if  he  were  not  resisted  they  were  all  undone. 
Upon  this  trick  he  gained  the  country  to  come  into  the 
city,  where  when  he  had  them  he  locked  the  gates  and  set 
a  strong  guard  at  them  so  that  they  could  not  retire  to 
their  own  houses,  but  were  forced  to  abide  in  the  city.  The 
countrymen  express  that  they  have  no  hearts  to  the  ser- 
vice, but  they  are  kept  in  with  hopes  that  there  will  forces 
come  from  the  King  and  it  is  given  out  the  city  shall  be 
made  a  garrison.  We  hear  there  are  both  foot  and  horse 
come  from  the  King  into  the  city,  but  we  have  no  certain 
information  of  the  truth  thereof.  Divers  houses  are  threat- 
ened to  be  plundered  within  and  without  the  city;  the 
Sheriff,  being  abetted  by  the  gentlemen  before  named,  is 
extreme  violent  in  the  Commission  of  Array.  They  have 
taken  and  imprisoned  some  men,  and  have  cast  irons  upon 
one  and  thrust  him  into  the  dungeon.  They  set  two  pistols 
to  the  Mayor's  breast,  and  offered  him  to  take  an  oath,  but 
what  the  contents  of  the  oath  is  we  know  not.  We  desire 
you  to  acquaint  the  House  of  all  that  has  befallen  us,  and 
that  Parliament  will  take  into  consideration  what  this  may 
grow  to. 

"  Postscript.  Captain  Chittey  and  Edward  Higgons  were 
forced  to  fly  to  Portsmouth  without  any  money,  and  the 
Sheriff  will  not  suffer  any  goods  to  be  brought  out.  They 
desire  that  for  the  present  they  may  have  some  moneys 
out  of  the  Contribution  Money." 

The  House  promptly  sent  instructions  to  its  representa- 
tives in  Sussex:  "  Whereas  His  Majesty  for  the  furtherance 
and  prosecution  of  this  unnatural  war  against  his  subjects, 
hath  appointed  Edward  Ford,  Esq.,  son  of  Sir  William  Ford, 
to  be  Sheriff  of  the  County  of  Sussex,  who  by  pretext 
thereof,  hath  raised  the  power  of  the  said  County,  and 


48       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

strengthening  himself  with  other  forces,  hath  seized  the 
city  of  Chichester,  and  in  divers  manners  spoiled  divers  of 
his  Majesty's  good  subjects,  and  forced  them  to  forsake 
their  dwellings:  for  more  speedy  suppression  of  this  and 
all  other  such  traitors  and  rebels,  you  shall  seize  upon  the 
person  of  the  said  Ford,  and  upon  the  persons  of  all  others 
who  are  aiding  and  assisting  him,  and  shall  send  them  up 
in  safe  custody  to  the  Parliament;  and  you  shall  seize  the 
houses,  lands  rents  and  other  goods  and  chattels  of  the  said 
person  and  all  others  who  have  taken  up  arms  against  the 
Parliament;  and  shall  send  up  to  the  Speaker  of  the  Com- 
mons' House  a  perfect  schedule  of  such  houses,  lands,  rents 
goods  and  chattels,  and  shall  put  the  same  into  such  hands 
as  shall  be  answerable  and  accountable  for  the  same. 

"  You  shall  take  away  the  arms  and  horses  of  such  as  do 
refuse  to  contribute  horsemen  or  arms  upon  the  proposition : 
and  you  shall  force  all  Papists,  and  persons  disaffected  to 
the  Parliament,  to  contribute  towards  the  maintenance  of 
your  army." l 

But  it  was  one  thing  to  make  such  an  order,  and  another 
to  execute  it. 

Sir  Edward  Ford  was  not  content  with  his  easy  success 
at  Chichester.  Regardless  of  the  fact  that  Sir  William 
Waller,  having  captured  Winchester,  was  preparing  to  in- 
vade Sussex  with  a  large  force,  he  set  out  in  company  with 
the  Earl  of  Thanet  to  attack  Lewes.  In  order  to  obtain 
recruits  he  took  the  somewhat  summary  course  of  ordering 
all  men  capable  of  bearing  arms  to  join  his  ranks  under 
pain  of  death  and  of  having  their  houses  burnt.2  A  few 
recruits  were  obtained  by  these  means,  but  they  did  not 
make  zealous  soldiers.  At  Hayward's  Heath,  Ford  was  met 
by  a  somewhat  less  numerous  Parliamentary  force.  Neither 
party  had  any  artillery.  The  Parliamentarians  attacked 
with  great  fierceness,  and  after  an  hour's  fighting,  when 

1  House  of  Commons  Journals,  7th  December,  1642. 

2  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  viii. 


PORTSMOUTH  AND  CHICHESTER          49 

their  reserves  came  up,  completely  routed  the  Cavaliers, 
who  lost,  it  is  said,  not  less  than  200  men.  The  unhappy 
countrymen  who  had  been  pressed  into  service,  threw  down 
their  arms  and  ran  as  fast  as  their  legs  could  carry  them  to 
the  neighbouring  villages  of  Hurst  and  Ditchling,  where 
we  may  suppose  that  their  experience  of  the  first  fight  on 
Sussex  soil  for  many  a  long  day  lost  nothing  in  the  telling. 
The  Cavaliers  fled  to  the  Downs  and  thence  to  Chichester. 
News  of  this  engagement  reached  Parliament  on  8th  Dec- 
ember. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER 

A  FEW  days  later  Waller's  victorious  forces  were  con- 
verging on  Chichester.  The  main  body  came  by  way 
of  Havant,  losing  many  by  desertion  on  the  road,  pay 
being  much  in  arrear  and  discontent  rife.  It  appears  that 
their  march  was  not  unopposed.  There  are  vague  accounts 
of  a  fight  "with  a  great  party  of  the  King's  army  in  a 
great  field  for  seven  hours  very  courageously." l  This  was 
probably  little  more  than  a  skirmish  of  advance  guards. 
At  length  Sergeant-Major  Skippon  came  up  with  eleven 
troops  of  horse  and  the  Cavaliers  fled,  many  of  them  being 
captured  and  some  200  slain.  The  victorious  army  is  said 
to  have  lost  about  forty. 

Waller  himself,  with  Colonel  Browne,  his  second  in 
command,  proceeded  towards  Chichester,  but  before  arriving 
there  he  sent  a  small  detachment  of  a  hundred  men  to 
capture  Arundel  Castle.  Its  owner,  Thomas,  Earl  of 
Arundel,  had  retired  to  the  Continent  in  the  previous  year; 
but  his  son  and  heir,  Lord  Mowbray,  had  from  the  first 
attached  himself  to  the  King's  cause,  and  he  continued  to 
fight  in  the  royal  army  for  three  years.  He  then  retired  to 
the  Continent,  but  having  succeeded  in  1646  at  his  father's 
death  to  his  title  and  estates,  he  returned  to  England,  and 
was  allowed  at  his  own  request  to  compound  for  £6,ooo.2 
It  appears  rather  strange  that  so  important  a  post  as 

1  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  viii. 
*  S.  A.  C.,  v,  41. 

50 


THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER  51 

Arundel,  which,  if  well  garrisoned  and  provisioned,  could 
have  been  made  almost  impregnable,  should  have  been  left 
so  ill-guarded.  If  Sir  Edward  Ford  and  his  friends  had 
concentrated  their  energies  upon  it,  instead  of  vainly 
endeavouring  to  hold  the  city  of  Chichester  with  its  dis- 
affected population,  they  might  have  offered  a  much  more 
serious  resistance  to  Sir  William  Waller.  Probably  the 
absence  of  the  Earl  made  any  such  arrangement  difficult 
or  impossible.  At  any  rate,  it  was  now  in  charge  of  a 
garrison  of  about  a  hundred  men,  who  were  not  expecting 
the  arrival  of  any  hostile  force.1 

Waller's  gallant  attacking  party  rode  into  the  town,  and 
while  the  remainder  held  the  Royalist  townsfolk  in  check, 
thirty-six  daring  spirits  assaulted  the  castle.  They  blew  in 
the  gate  with  a  petard,2  and,  dashing  in,  surprised  and 
secured  the  garrison.  Among  the  prisoners  were  Sir 
Richard  Lechford  and  his  son — "a  great  Papist" — and 
one  Captain  Goulding,  who  was  employed  in  raising  men 
and  arms  in  Sussex  for  the  Royalists  in  Chichester.  The 
prisoners  were  sent  to  London.  The  victors,  who  had 
taken  this  important  stronghold  without  the  loss  of  a  man, 
were  rewarded  by  the  capture  of  100  horses,  together  with 
arms  and  stores. 

1  Vicar's  Jehoveh-Jirah,  God  in  the  Mount;  or  England's  Parlia- 
mentarie  Chronicle,  1644,  p.  231. 

2  A  favourite  method  of  attacking  fortified  houses  or  castles  unpro- 
vided with  outworks,  was  to  apply  a  petard  to  the  gate  and  blow  it  in. 
The  most  lucid  explanation  of  the  process  is  given  by  Sir  Henry  Lee, 
in  the  thirty-third  chapter  of  Woodstock,  to  his  house-maid  Phoebe, 
while  Cromwell  is  attaching  one  to  the  front  door  of  the  manor  house. 
"  '  What  can  they  be  doing  now,  sir?'  said  Phoebe,  hearing  a  noise  as 
it  were  of  a  carpenter  turning  screw  nails,  mixed  with  a  low  buzz  of 
men  talking.    '  They  are  fixing  a  petard,'  said  the  knight  with  great 
composure.    '  I  have  noted  thee  for  a  clever  wench,  Phoebe,  and  I  will 
explain  it  to  thee :  'Tis  a  metal  pot,  shaped  very  much  like  one  of  the 
roguish  knaves  own  sugar-loaf  hats,  supposing  it  had  a  narrower  brim 
— it  is  charged  with  some  few  pounds  of  fine  gunpowder'"  (see  Firth, 
Cromwell's  Army,  p.  166). 


52       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

The  fate  of  Chichester  was  now  to  be  decided.  Waller 
arrived  before  the  town  on  2ist  December  1642,  his  force 
amounting  to  about  6,000  men.  He  had  been  joined  the 
evening  before  by  three  troops  of  horse  and  two  companies 
of  "  Dragooneers  "  under  Colonel  Morley  and  Sir  Michael 
Levesey.1  The  Trained  Bands  of  Sussex,  who  had  been  dis- 
armed a  month  earlier  by  Sir  Edward  Ford,  the  High 
Sheriff,  expressed  their  resolve  "  to  regain  and  fetch  their 
arms  from  Chichester  or  else  to  lose  their  lives  in  the 
attempt  thereof."  And  they  were  as  good  as  their  word. 

When  Waller  appeared  before  Chichester,  the  garrison 
made  a  sortie,  but  were  repulsed  with  the  loss  of  one  killed 
and  one  taken  prisoner.  Waller  suffered  no  loss,  and 
secured  his  position  "  upon  a  Downe  called  the  Broils,  the 
only  commanding  ground  about  the  town  " ;  and  under  fire 
from  the  guns  of  the  town  the  rest  of  the  day  was  spent  in 
constructing  siege  batteries.  With  the  approval  of  Sir 
Arthur  Haselrig  and  the  rest  of  his  officers,  Waller  next 
summoned  the  city  to  surrender.  A  parley  followed,  the 
besiegers  being  represented  by  Major  Horatio  Carey  and 
Captain  Catre,  for  whom  Colonel  Lindsay  and  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Potter  were  sent  as  hostages.  Waller's  demands 
were  as  follows:  An  absolute  surrender  of  the  city,  with 
the  giving  up  of  Sir  Edward  Ford,  of  all  Papists,  and  of 
all  persons  considered  by  the  Parliament  as  delinquents ; 
the  soldiers  to  depart  without  arms;  the  officers  to  retain 
their  swords  and  horses  under  a  pledge  never  again  to  take 
up  arms  against  the  Parliament. 

After  a  long  debate  these  terms  were  declined,  but  the 
garrison  offered  to  give  up  any  Roman  Catholics  within  the 
walls.  "Whereupon,"  says  Waller,  "the  next  day  our  battery 
played,  but  our  cannoneers  overshot  the  towne  extremely." 
A  report  reached  the  city  that  Prince  Rupert  was  ap- 

1  This  account  of  the  siege  is  taken  from  Waller's  own  account  as 
given  in  a  letter  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  preserved  by  Vicars,  Jehoveh- 
Jirah,  pp.  234-240. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER  53 

preaching,  which  encouraged  the  garrison,  but  also  prob- 
ably hastened  the  operations  of  the  besiegers.  On  the 
following  day  Waller  brought  his  guns  nearer  to  the  town. 
The  suburbs  of  the  west  gate  were  occupied  after  a  fierce 
struggle,  but  the  burning  with  wild-fire  of  certain  houses 
by  the  garrison  obliged  the  besiegers  to  retreat.  The  east 
gate  was  also  cleared  by  the  burning  of  houses  near  to  it. 
Waller  then  brought  his  ordnance  to  the  almshouses 
within  half  a  musket-shot  of  the  north  gate,  and  played 
through  the  gate  into  the  market-place.  Colonel  Roberts, 
with  fresh  troops  from  Arundel,  established  his  position  at 
the  south  gate;  and  on  the  east  side  of  the  town  the 
besieged  on  the  walls  were  galled  by  a  firing  kept  up  from 
the  church  of  St.  Pancras  outside.  It  was  now  the  sixth  day 
of  the  siege,  and  Waller  was  preparing  to  make  a  simul- 
taneous attack  upon  the  east  and  west,  and  also  "  to  petard 
a  back  gate  that  issued  out  of  the  Deanery  through  the 
town  wall  into  the  fields,  and  was  walled  up  by  a  single 
brick  thick."  But  at  ten  o'clock  at  night  a  trumpet  was 
sent  out  of  the  city  with  a  request  for  a  parley  at  nine 
o'clock  the  next  morning,  which  was  granted. 

At  the  time  appointed  Sir  William  Balnidine  and 
Captain  Wolfe  were  sent  from  the  garrison  to  treat  for  a 
surrender.  Waller  now  declined  to  grant  any  more  favour- 
able terms  than  "  Quarter  and  with  it  honourable  usage." 
This  was  refused  "  not  without  hot  indignation,"  and  the 
besieged  prepared  to  sell  their  lives  dearly,  and  Waller  "  to 
proceed  roundly  and  speedily  with  them."  But  at  the  last 
moment  before  the  assault,  a  message  was  sent  out  from 
the  city  asking  for  a  respite  until  seven  the  next  morning? 
when  a  surrender  on  Waller's  terms  was  agreed  upon. 
Some  of  Lord  Crawford's  Scotch  troopers  within  the  city 
opposed  the  surrender,  but  it  was  carried  out  in  the 
afternoon. 

During  the  eight  days  of  the  siege  no  rain  had  fallen, 
which  greatly  assisted  the  operations  of  the  besiegers,  but 


54       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  surrender  of  the  city  was  immediately  followed  by 
"continual  incessant  showers."  The  Puritan  chroniclers 
saw  in  this  "  the  good  hand  of  Providence,"  and  also  noted 
with  exultation  that  the  surrender  took  place  at  the  very 
moment  of  the  monthly  fast.  Parliament  had  passed  an 
Ordinance  on  22nd  August  for  a  solemn  fast  to  be  kept  on 
the  last  Wednesday  of  every  month,  the  observance  of 
which  served  as  a  ready  test  of  political  leanings ;  and  a 
pretty  severe  test  it  was,  for  Clarendon  tells  us  that  it 
was  "  observed  for  eight  or  ten  hours  together  in  the 
churches." l 

Waller's  first  care  was  "  to  release  and  fully  set  at 
libertie  all  the  honest  men  of  the  towne  whom  they  had 
imprisoned,  who  being  thus  enlarged,  we  employed  in 
places  of  trust  in  the  city."  The  great  body  of  the  towns- 
folk was  probably  throughout  on  the  Parliamentary  side, 
and  unwilling  to  take  part  in  the  defence  of  the  city. 
Clarendon  attributes  the  surrender  to  this  cause,  and  to  the 
disaffection  of  "  the  common  people  of  the  county,  out  of 
which  soldiers  were  to  rise ;  .  .  .  their  number  of  common 
men  was  so  small  that  the  constant  duty  was  performed 
by  the  officers  and  gentlemen  of  quality,  who  were  abso- 
lutely tired  out."  And  in  order  to  suppress  active  opposi- 
tion within  the  city,  Sir  Edward  Ford  had  doubtless  found 
it  necessary  to  keep  the  leading  Puritans  under  lock 
and  key. 

"In  the  evening,"  says  Waller,  "  I  discovered  a  train  laid 
of  some  barrels  of  gun-powder  not  farre  from  my  lodging, 
whereupon  search  being  diligently  made,  I  apprehended 
the  gunner  that  was  suspected,  but  he  would  confess 
nothing,  and  all  the  gentlemen  being  questioned  about  it, 
utterly  disclaimed  it."  The  next  business  was  to  deal  with 
the  prisoners.  Of  these  there  were  "fifty  or  three-score 
gentlemen  of  quality  and  officers  of  name,"  comprising 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  32. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER  55 

seventeen  captains,  thirteen  lieutenants,  and  eight  ensigns,1 
who  were  for  the  most  part  Scotsmen — "  with  all  their 
brave  horses,  which  were  dainty  ones  indeed."2  About 
400  "  excellent  dragoneers "  and  three  or  four  hundred 
infantry  laid  down  their  arms.  By  order  of  Parliament  the 
prisoners  were  sent  to  London,  the  humbler  captives  being 
despatched  by  sea. 

Many  of  the  leading  Royalist  gentry  of  Sussex  fell  into 
Waller's  hands.  Chief  among  them  were  Sir  Edward  Ford, 
the  High  Sheriff,  with  his  father,  Sir  William  Ford,  of  Up 
Park.  Ford  was  a  man  of  some  ability,  as  his  subsequent 
career  evidenced;  but  he  seems  to  have  excelled  neither 
in  strategy  nor  in  tactics,  and  much  of  the  disaster  which 
now  overtook  his  friends  and  associates  was  due  to  his 
ill-advised  initiative.  Ford  was  immediately  sent  up  to 
London,  but  was  soon  released  through  the  influence  of  his 
wife,  Sarah,  who  was  a  sister  of  the  Parliamentary  General 
Ireton;  and  before  a  year  had  passed  he  was  again  in  arms 
for  the  King. 

Most  of  the  gentry  and  some  of  the  Cathedral  clergy  were 
dealt  with  in  the  following  year  by  the  Commissioners 
appointed  to  sequestrate  Royalist  estates,  but  some  were 
fined  comparatively  small  sums  by  Waller  immediately. 
The  gentry  included  Sir  William  Morley  of  Halnaker,  and 
his  nephew,  Sir  John  Morley,  of  Brooms  in  the  manor  .of 
Chilgrove,  West  Dean.  Sir  John  Morley  seems  to  have 
found  some  means  to  ingratiate  himself  with  Sir  William 
Waller,  perhaps  the  payment  of  a  fine  of  .£300.  He  had 
a  protection  order,  signed  by  Waller,  on  nth  January 
1642-3,  specifying  that  his  house  in  South  Street,  Chi- 
chester,  had  been  searched  for  arms,  etc.,  and  enjoining 
"  that  no  person  do  presume  to  enter  therein,  for  search, 
etc.,  or  plunder  the  plate,  goods  or  effects  "  of  Sir  John, 
Dame  Katherine,  his  mother,  Dame  Mary,  his  wife,  his 

1  Clarendon,  vi,  236.  2  Vicars,  loc,  cit. 


56       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

children  or  servants,  he  "  having  largely  contributed  to  the 
service  of  the  King  and  parliament,  and  standing  well 
affected  to  them  both." l 

Others  were  Sir  Thomas  Bowyer  of  Leythorn  in  North 
Mundham,  created  a  Baronet  in  1634;  Thomas  May  of 
Rawmere  in  Mid  Lavant ;  Christopher  Lewknor,  the  recorder 
and  member  for  Chichester,  recently  expelled,  a  member 
of  the  well-known  Lewknor  family  of  West  Dean;  John 
Covert  of  Slaugham ;  Thomas  and  George  Counter,  cousins, 
of  Racton,  who  subsequently  took  a  leading  part  in  assist- 
ing Charles  II  on  his  journey  to  Brighthelmstone  after  the 
battle  of  Worcester;  Thomas  Counter  was  now  fined 
£100. 

The  Cathedral  clergy  suffered  severely.  They  were  not 
only  deprived  of  the  emoluments  of  their  offices,  but  in 
many  cases  were  fined  as  well.  Chief  among  them  was  the 
Bishop,  Dr.  Henry  King,  "  a  proud  Prelate,  as  all  the  rest 
are,  and  a  most  pragmaticall  malignant  against  the  Parlia- 
ment, as  all  his  cater-capt  companions  are."2  He  was  al- 
lowed to  retire  to  the  residence  of  his  brother-in-law,  Sir 
Richard  Hobart,  in  Buckinghamshire,  where  he  remained 
in  seclusion  until  the  Restoration.  He  then  resumed  his 
see  and  the  rich  benefice  of  Petworth.3  It  is  rather  curious 
that  according  to  Wood  *  "  he  was  puritanically  affected,  and 
therefore  to  please  the  puritans  he  was  promoted  to  the 
See  of  Chichester."  But  doubtless  in  the  prevailing  rage 
against  bishops  no  distinction  of  High  and  Low  Church 
was  drawn.  The  bishop's  palace,  with  the  manor  of  the 
Broyll  and  its  demesnes,  was  sold  to  Colonel  John  Downes 
for  the  sum  of  £1,309  6s.s 

1  Royalist  Composition  Papers,  vol.  A,  103,  p.  113.    S.  A.  C.,  xix, 
104. 

2  Vicars,  Jehoveh-Jirah,  loc.  cit. 

3  Lower's  Worthies  of  Sussex,  p.  117. 

4  Athenae  Oxonienses,  iii,  841. 

5  Dallaway,  Chichester,  p.  32,  on  the  authority  of  MSS.  Lambeth, 
No.  951,  entitled  Lambeth  Papers,  No.  u. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER  57 

The  Dean,  Dr.  Bruno  Reeves,  was  fined  £120,  and  many 
of  the  Canons  suffered  severely.  One  John  Gregory,  the 
Prebendary  of  Bracklesham,  a  great  Oriental  scholar,  and 
a  friend  of  Selden's,  was  so  reduced  as  to  die  in  obscure 
poverty  at  an  alehouse  in  I646.1 

It  is  sad  to  relate  that  irreparable  damage  was  done  to 
the  Cathedral  by  the  victorious  soldiery,  whom  Waller  was 
either  powerless  or  unwilling  to  restrain.  His  officer,  Sir 
Arthur  Haselrig,  took  part  in,  and  even  appears  to  have 
instigated  these  disgraceful  proceedings,  of  which  a  full 
account  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Reeves, 
the  Dean.  This  account,  which  is  instinct  with  a  mordant 
humour,  is  as  follows: 2 

"  The  rebels  under  the  conduct  of  Sir  William  Waller, 
entering  the  City  of  Chichester  on  Innocents  Day  1642,  the 
next  day  their  first  business  was  to  plunder  the  Cathedral 
Church.  The  Marshal  therefore  and  some  others,  having 
entered  the  Church,  went  into  the  Vestry;  there  they  seize 
up  the  vestments  and  ornaments  of  the  church,  together 
with  the  consecrated  plate  serving  for  the  altar  and  ad- 
ministration of  the  Lord's  Supper ;  they  left  not  so  much  as 
a  cushion  for  the  pulpit,  nor  a  chalice  for  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment. The  Commanders  having  in  person  executed  the 
covetous  part  of  sacrilege,  they  leave  the  destructive  and 
spoiling  part  to  be  finished  by  the  common  soldiers :  [who] 
brake  down  the  organs,  and  dashing  the  pipes  with  their 
pole-axes,  scoffingly  said  '  Hark  how  the  organs  go.'  They 
brake  the  rail  about  the  Communion  Table,  which  was  done 
with  that  fury,  that  the  Table  itself  escaped  not  their  mad- 
ness, but  tasted  of  the  same  fate  with  the  rail,  and  was 
broken  in  pieces  by  them.  At  the  east  end  of  the  Choir 
did  hang  a  very  fair  Table,  wherein  were  written  the  Ten 
Commandments,  with  the  pictures  of  Moses  and  Aaron  on 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  52. 

2  Mercurius  Rusticus,  or  the  Countrie's  Complaint,  Oxford,  1646, 
p.  223. 


58       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

each  side  of  the  Table.  Possessed  with  a  zeal,  but  not  like 
that  of  Moses,  they  pull  down  the  Table,  and  break  it  into 
small  shivers.  'Twas  no  wonder  that  they  should  break  the 
Commandments  in  their  representation,  that  had  before 
broken  them  all  over  in  their  substance  and  sanction.  They 
force  open  all  the  locks,  either  of  doors  or  desks  wherein 
the  singing-men  laid  their  Common-Prayer-books,  their 
singing  books,  their  gown  and  surplices;  they  rent  the 
books  in  pieces,  and  scatter  the  torn  leaves  all  over  the 
Church,  even  to  the  covering  of  the  pavement ;  but  against 
the  gowns  and  surplices  their  anger  was  not  so  hot ;  these 
were  not  amongst  the  anathemata,  but  might  be  reserved 
to  secular  uses. 

"  In  the  south  cross-aisle,  on  the  one  side,  the  history  of 
the  Church's  foundation  was  very  artificially  portrayed  with 
the  pictures  of  the  Kings  of  England;  on  the  other  side 
over  against  them,  are  the  pictures  of  the  Bishops,  as  well 
of  Selsey  as  of  Chichester,  begun  by  Robert  Sherborn,  the 
thirty-seventh  Bishop  of  that  see,  and  the  series  brought 
down  to  his  own  time  at  his  own  charges ;  who  as  he  made  that 
of  the  Psalmist,  Dilexi  decorem  domus  tut  domine — '  Lord  I 
have  loved  the  beauty  of  thy  house' — his  impress  and 
motto,  so  he  made  it  his  work  and  endeavour.  These 
monuments  they  deface  and  mangle  with  their  hands  and 
swords,  as  high  as  they  could  reach ;  and  to  show  their  love 
and  zeal  to  the  Protestant  religion,  established  in  the 
Church  of  England,  one  of  those  miscreants  picked  out  the 
eyes  of  King  Edward  the  Sixth's  picture,  saying  '  That  all 
this  mischief  came  from  him  when  he  established  the  Book 
of  Common-prayer.' 

"  On  the  Tuesday  following  they  had  a  solemn  thanks- 
giving for  their  success  in  gaining  that  city.  Men  of  cauter- 
ized consciences,  and  given  up  to  a  reprobate  sense,  thus 
not  only  to  take  the  name  of  God  in  vain,  but  damnably  to 
blaspheme  it,  as  if  He  were  the  patron  of  rapine,  blood  and 
sacrilege.  After  the  sermon  was  ended,  as  men  not  inspired 


THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER  59 

by  the  holy  spirit,  of  which  they  so  much  boast,  but  pos- 
sessed and  transported  by  a  Bacchanalian  fury,  they  ran  up 
and  down  the  church  with  their  swords  drawn  defacing  the 
monuments  of  the  dead,  hacking  and  hewing  the  seats  and 
stalls,  scratching  and  scraping  the  painted  walls;  Sir  Wil- 
liam Waller  and  the  rest  of  the  commanders  standing  by 
as  spectators  and  approvers  of  these  barbarous  impieties  ; 
yet  for  fear  lest  in  this  schismatical  frenzy  the  sword  in  mad 
men's  hands  might  mistake,  Sir  William  Waller,  a  wary 
man  as  he  is,  and  well  known  not  to  be  too  apt  to  expose 
himself  to  danger,  stood  all  the  while  with  his  sword  drawn, 
and  being  asked  by  one  of  his  troopers  what  he  meant  to 
stand  in  that  posture,  he  answered  that  it  was  to  secure 
himself.  You  know  'tis  written  '  The  wicked  are  afraid 
where  no  fear  is,'  for  though  the  people  made  him  an  idol 
in  London,  yet  being  no  popish,  but  a  puritanical  idol  (for 
they  have  their  idols  and  their  idolatry,  as  much  as  the 
Church  of  Rome)  there  was  no  danger  to  his  person,  to  be 

mistaken  for  an  object  of  their  Reformation  at  Chichester 

"  Having  therefore  made  what  spoil  they  could  in  the 
Cathedral,  they  rush  out  thence  and  break  open  a  parish 
church,  standing  on  the  north  side  of  the  cathedral,  called 
the  sub-deanery;  there  they  did  teare  the  Common-prayer- 
books;  and  because  many  things  in  the  Holy  Bible  made 
strongly  against  them,  and  did  contradict  and  condemn 
their  impious  practices,  they  marked  it  in  divers  places 
with  a  black  coal.  Here  they  stole  the  minister's  surplice 
and  hood,  and  all  the  linen  serving  for  the  communion ;  and 
finding  no  more  plate  but  the  challice,  they  steal  that  too, 
which  they  brake  in  pieces,  to  make  a  just  and  equal 
divident  amongst  themselves;  for  an  engineer  of  theirs, 
Robert  Prince,  a  Frenchman,  with  a  wooden  leg,  afterwards 
showed  the  foot  thereof  broken  off;  and  when  complaint 
was  made  of  these  barbarous  outrages,  Captain  Keely  re- 
plied, that  he  knew  not  whether  all  this  were  not  done  by 
order  or  no. 


6o       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

"  About  five  or  six  days  after,  Sir  Arthur  Haselrig 
demanded  the  keys  of  the  Chapter-house;  being  entered 
the  place  and  having  intelligence  by  a  treacherous  officer 
of  the  Church,  where  the  remainder  of  the  church-plate  was, 
he  commanded  his  servants  to  break  down  the  wainscot 
round  about  the  room,  which  was  quickly  done,  they  hav- 
ing brought  crows  of  iron  for  that  purpose  along  with  them. 
While  they  were  knocking  down  the  wainscot,  Sir  Arthur's 
tongue  was  not  enough  to  express  his  joy;  it  was  operative 
at  his  heeles,  for  dancing  and  skipping,  (pray  mark  what 
music  that  is  to  which  it  is  lawful  for  a  Puritan  to  dance) 
he  cried  out  '  There,  boys :  there,  boys ;  heark,  heark,  it 
rattles,  it  rattles';  and  being  much  importuned  by  some 
members  of  that  church  to  leave  the  church  but  a  cup  for 
administration  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  answer  was  re- 
turned by  a  Scotchman  standing  by  that  they  should  take 
a  wooden  dish.  And  now  tell  me  which  was  farthest  from 
a  Christian,  either  this  impure  Scot,  or  that  blasphemous 
atheist,  who  seeing  the  massy  plate  and  rich  ornaments 
wherewith  the  Christian  altars  were  adorned  in  the  primit- 
ive church,  in  indignation  and  scorn  belched  out  En  quam 
preciosis  vasis  filius  Mariae  ministratur — '  Behold  with  what 
costly  vessels  the  Son  of  Mary  is  served.'  What  further 
spoil  and  indignity  they  have  since  done  to  that  house  of 
God,  and  'the  habitation  where  His  honour  dwelt'  is  yet 
uncertain." 

Such  is  the  indignant  Dean's  account  of  these  indecent 
outrages,  and  with  every  allowance  for  partisan  exaggera- 
tion, there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  not  substantially 
true. 

Sir  Arthur  Haselrig  was  certainly  the  scourge  of  the  city. 
It  is  said  that  he  again  visited  it  in  1647,  on  the  invitation 
of  Mr.  William  Cawley,  to  finish  the  work  of  destruction 
which  it  was  alleged  had  been  left  incomplete,  and  that 
finish  it  he  did.1 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  44.    I  can  find  no  authority  for  this  story,  which  has 


THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER  61 

The  paucity  of  ancient  records  possessed  by  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Chichester  is  generally  attributed  to  the  destruction 
of  the  muniments  of  the  see  by  Waller's  soldiery.  But 
there  is  some  evidence  that  they  had  been  lost  before,  per- 
haps during  the  negligent  rule  of  Dean  William  Thorne, 
the  Orientalist.  Among  the  questions  asked  at  the  Bishop's 
visitation  of  1616  is  the  following:  "What  is  become  of  the 
Copes,  Monuments  and  Vestments  of  your  church?  By 
whose  default  principally  are  your  evidences  wanting  and 
lost?"1 

Apart  from  wilful  damage,  no  due  care  was  taken  of  the 
Cathedral  library.  Years  afterwards,  in  1651,  the  County 
Committee  for  Sussex  wrote  to  the  Committee  for  Com- 
pounding: "There  are  in  the  Deanery  House  in  Chichester 
a  considerable  number  of  books,  long  since  sequestered  by 
the  former  committee  from  the  late  bishop,  dean,  and 
chapter,  and  other  delinquents,  which  belonged  to  the 
Cathedral.  If  you  approve,  a  waggon  should  be  hired  to 
bring  them  up  to  London,  so  as  to  have  them  appraised  and 
sold  for  the  use  of  the  state,  as  they  have  received  much 
damage,  and  will  do  still  more  by  lying  where  they  are." 
The  reply  was  that  the  books  were  to  remain  at  the  dean- 
ery to  be  inventoried  and  appraised  there,  and  the  certifi- 
cate sent  up.* 

Damage  to  the  Cathedral  was  not  the  only  loss  sustained 
by  Chichester  from  the  siege.  The  industry  of  needle- 
making  had  long  been  established  there,  and  the  town  is 
stated  to  have  monopolized  the  trade  of  England  in  needles 
during  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.3  The 
manufacture  was  carried  on  chiefly  in  the  parish  of  St.  Pan- 
eras,  without  the  east  gate,  and  at  the  time  of  the  siege 

apparently  been   copied   by  later  writers — Dallaway,   Blaauw,  and 
Godwin — from  Hay's  History  of  Chichester,  p.  344. 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Various  Collections,  1901,  pp.  188,  201. 

2  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  p.  470. 

3  Hay,  History  of  Chichester,  p.  366. 


62       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

almost  every  house  in  the  parish  was  occupied  by  a  needle- 
maker.  From  the  registers  it  appears  that  an  almost  com- 
plete demolition  of  houses  took  place; l  the  entries  relating 
to  a  numerous  population  are  followed  by  a  hiatus,  and 
thereafter  the  re-erection  of  houses  seems  to  have  proceeded 
slowly.  The  industry  received  a  blow  from  which  it  never 
recovered.  The  production  of  cheaper,  if  inferior,  needles 
in  the  manufacturing  towns  of  the  north  no  doubt  completed 
its  destruction. 

This  industry  was  perhaps  one  of  those  brought  from  the 
Continent  by  immigrants  and  refugees,  with  whom  the 
coast  towns  abounded.  Many  of  these  were  regarded  as 
undesirable  aliens,  not  only  because  from  their  poverty  they 
were  liable  to  become  a  burden  to  the  parish — "to  the 
great  cry  and  grief  of  the  inhabitants  of  Rye  and  other 
places  about  the  same  " — but  because  of  their  competition 
with  established  traders.  But  in  spite  of  all  restrictions 
numerous  Frenchmen  and  Flemings  became  domiciled  in 
the  Sussex  ports,  as  the  names  of  their  descendants  bear 
witness.  And  as  has  happened  throughout  our  history, 
these  strangers  brought  with  them  a  knowledge  of  trades 
and  handicrafts  in  which  the  English  were  not  previously 
proficient.  Among  foreigners  resident  at  Rye  in  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth  were  Bonaventure  Dusseville,  a  bookbinder, 
John  Frottier,  a  locksmith,  and  Pierre  Sommellier,  a  clock- 
maker.2  Fas  est  et  ab  hoste  doceri.  There  were  as  yet  no 
Jews;  they  had  to  wait  for  the  tolerance  of  Cromwell. 

Chichester  was  held  by  the  Parliament  as  a  garrison 
town  until  2nd  March  1646,  when  it  was  decided  to  dis- 
garrison  it,  and  the  ordnance  was  transferred  to  Arundel.3 
Waller  left  it  in  the  hands  of  Colonel  Anthony  Stapley  of 
Framfield  and  Patcham,  Member  of  Parliament  for  the 
county,  and  his  appointment  as  governor  was  subsequently 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxii,  223. 

2  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  6. 

3  S.  A.  C,  v,  53. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  CHICHESTER  63 

confirmed  by  Parliament.  He  seems  to  have  been  ill- 
provided  with  funds,  as  on  i8th  November  1643  we  find 
him  writing  somewhat  peremptorily  to  the  Speaker,  William 
Lenthall,  in  acknowledgement  of  his  letter  of  the  i6th, 
directing  that  the  rents  and  estate  of  Sir  William  Morley 
were  not  to  be  taken,  "if  you  please  to  discharge  this 
estate  or  any  other  and  not  to  provide  otherwise  to  pay 
these  men  under  my  command,  you  will,  I  hope  give  me 
leave  to  provide  myself  and  men  as  I  can,  and  to  quit  the 
employment,  when  I  cannot  longer  serve  you  in  it"  l 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  156. 


T 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  ROYALIST  INVASION 
HE  calm  which  followed  Waller's  capture  of  Chiches- 


ter  lasted  through  the  greater  part  of  1643.  The  two 
most  powerful  men  in  Sussex  were  now  Colonel  Anthony 
Stapley,  Governor  of  Chichester,  and  Colonel  Herbert 
Morley.  The  common  people,  if  they  had  no  enthusiasm 
for  the  King's  cause,  felt  little  for  the  Parliament's.  Re- 
cruiting was  unpopular,  and  money,  except  from  the 
sequestration  of  the  estates  of  Royalists,  was  as  difficult  to 
obtain  as  men.  On  23rd  May  Colonel  Morley  wrote  to 
the  Speaker  concerning  a  riot  at  West  Hoathly  fair,  when 
Ancient  Streater  was  beating  for  volunteers,  in  which  the 
Ancient  was  badly  hurt,  and  the  head  of  his  drum 
beaten  in.1 

The  seaport  towns  probably  did  a  thriving  business  in 
carrying  passengers  and  despatches  secretly  to  and  from 
the  Continent.  In  another  letter  of  Colonel  Morley's  to 
the  Speaker,  dated  Lewes,  24th  April  1643,  he  says: 
"  About  three  weeks  since  the  Earl  of  Thanet  passed  the 
seas  into  France.  The  barque  that  carried  him  belongs  to 
one  Hayne  of  Brighthelmstone,  which  I  have  made  stay  of 
till  I  receive  your  pleasure,  for  I  conceive  it  no  small  crime 
to  transport  those  that  have  made  war  against  the  Parlia- 
ment without  your  warrant.  Friday  last  a  party  of  my 
horse  took  one  of  my  Lord  Montague's  servants,  that  was 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  709. 
64 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  65 

ready  to  take  barque  for  France.  About  him  they  found 
divers  letters  and  scandalous  pamphlets  against  the  Parlia- 
ment I  opened  some  of  the  letters,  but  finding  the  en- 
closed directed  to  himself  and  his  lady,  I  send  them  to 
you  sealed  as  I  found  them." 1 

It  would  appear  also  that  although  the  Sussex  ports 
were  all  held  for  the  Parliament,  a  certain  trade  was  done 
from  some  of  them  in  supplies  for  the  Royalist  forces.  On 
2/th  September  1643  Captain  Tristram  Stevens  wrote  to 
the  committee  at  Portsmouth  from  aboard  his  ship  the 
Charles,  that  a  Frenchman,  one  Jerome,  had  arrived  at 
Weymouth  from  Newhaven  with  100  barrels  of  powder 
and  other  arms  and  ammunition  for  the  garrison  there, 
and  urging  the  employment  of  one  of  the  Parliament's 
ships  to  intercept  this  traffic.2  Probably  the  supplies  came 
originally  from  Dieppe.  A  reference  to  this  traffic  is  to  be 
found  among  the  papers  of  the  Corporation  of  Rye. 

On  loth  June  1644  the  Mayor  wrote  to  the  Earl  of 
Warwick,  Lord  High  Admiral :  "  We  have  thought  it  our 
duty  to  signify  unto  you  that  our  town  of  Rye  being  the 
ordinary  passage  for  Dieppe,  where  divers  merchants  of 
London  and  their  goods,  merchant  strangers  and  othti 
passengers  do  weekly  pass  from  hence  thither,  which  brings 
in  a  considerable  sum  of  money  to  the  State  for  customs 
and  excise,  lately  a  barque  of  our  town  was  surprised  by 
one  of  the  King's  men-of-war  of  Weymouth,  which  had  in 
her  £3,000  worth  of  goods,  and  persons  of  quality,  two  of 
them  Mr.  Arundel's  sons,  a  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  Colonel  Browne's  son  and  heir,  and  divers  mer- 
chants of  good  worth.  We  beseech  your  Lordship  to  take 
this  into  your  consideration  and  that  you  will  be  pleased 
to  appoint  a  small  man  of  war  for  the  safety  of  our  passage 
barques  to  lie  between  our  town  and  Dieppe  Road,  which 
will  do  good  service  for  the  State,  for  there  is  store  of 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  in.  2  Ibid.,  i,  131. 

F 


66       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

ammunition  weekly  shipped  from  Dieppe  for  Weymouth 
by  one  Pinozeire."  l 

But  the  prevailing  peace  in  Sussex  had  been  brought 
about  by  the  presence  of  Waller's  army,  and  its  withdrawal 
was  the  signal  for  fresh  Royalist  endeavours.  The  irrepress- 
ible Sir  Edward  Ford  was  soon  at  work  again.  On  3rd 
August  Sir  Thomas  Pelham  and  other  justices  informed 
the  Speaker  that  Mr.  Thomas  Cotton,  a  dangerous  papist, 
had  that  day  been  brought  before  them.  They  enclosed 
the  warrant  found  in  his  saddle  which  would  clearly  desig- 
nate the  nature  of  his  employment.  By  this  and  many 
other  pregnant  circumstances  they  were  very  sensible  of 
their  more  than  approaching  danger,  which  to  prevent  they 
would  be  willing  to  apply  their  utmost  industry,  but  being 
conscious  of  their  inability  to  stand  of  themselves,  they 
humbly  addressed  themselves  to  the  House,  craving  advice 
and  assistance,  and  that  London  and  the  adjacent  counties 
might  associate  with  them  for  mutual  defence.  The  en- 
closure was  a  warrant  dated  Oxford,  igth  July,  from  Sir 
Edward  Ford,  High  Sheriff  of  Sussex,  to  his  kinsman 
Thomas  Cotton,  authorizing  him  to  persuade  the  well- 
affected  in  Sussex  and  the  parts  adjacent,  to  contribute 
horses,  arms,  plate,  or  money  for  his  Majesty's  service,  and 
to  receive  and  give  acquittances  for  such  contributions  "  that 
I  may  more  clearly  distinguish  the  well-affected  from 
cordial  traitors  and  penurious  neuters." 2 

The  danger  to  the  Parliamentary  cause  was  a  very  real 
one.  Colonel  Morley  was  at  Farnham  on  i6th  September 
and  informed  the  Speaker  that  he  had  received  intelli- 
gence that  a  large  Royalist  force,  consisting  of  the  Earl  of 
Crawford  and  his  men,  Colonel  Ford's,  Colonel  Bennett's, 
the  Sheriff  of  Wilts',  Sir  Edward  Deering's  and  Crispe's 
regiments  were  about  to  lay  siege  to  Southampton;  and 
that  the  garrison  there  was  not  above  300,  the  soldiers' 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  214. 
,  126. 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  67 

pay  in  arrears,  and  the  town  abounding  in  malignants.  He 
feared  that  unless  immediate  action  was  taken,  such  as 
sending  him  forthwith  2,000  horse  and  dragoons,  the 
southern  counties  would  all  be  lost  and  London  itself  in 
danger.  "  This  approaching  cloud,"  he  said,  "  may  raise  a 
storm  in  Sussex,  which  county  is  full  of  neuters  and  malig- 
nants ;  and  I  have  ever  observed  neuters  to  turn  malignants 
upon  such  occasions."1  This  fear  of  the  "neuter,"  the 
moderate  man,  who  was  not  a  partisan,  but  for  the  sake  of 
peace  was  ready  to  shout  with  the  side  that  was  uppermost, 
continually  appears  throughout  this  period. 

The  state  of  Portsmouth  was  also  causing  anxiety.  On 
28th  October  Parliament  was  informed  that  it  was  in 
want  of  a  governor,  and  also  of  men,  money,  powder,  and 
match.  Either  Sir  Robert  Harley  or  Sir  William  Erie 
"  stopped  the  relation  of  such  things  in  the  open  house, 
'  for  this  is  no  place  to  mention  the  state  of  Portsmouth 
in,  for  'tis  likely  his  Majesty  may  come  to  the  knowledge 
of  it.' "  * 

On  4th  November  a  Decree  of  Association  united  in  the 
cause  of  the  Parliament  the  counties  of  Sussex,  Kent,  Surrey, 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  the  town  and  county  of  Southampton. 
Sir  William  Waller  was  appointed  Major-General  of  the 
Association.  He  had  been  mustering  troops  at  Hounslow 
Heath,  and  now  made  Farnham  his  base  of  operations. 
His  army  seems  to  have  been  very  badly  equipped.  On 
23rd  November  1643,  William  Cawley  the  Chichester 
brewer,  and  member  for  Midhurst,  wrote  to  Speaker 
Lenthall  from  Farnham,  acquainting  the  House  "  in  what 
extreme  sad  condition  I  both  hear  and  find  Sir  William 
Waller's  army  proceeding,  especially  from  want  of  pay, 
whereby  they  are  altogether  disabled  for  the  present  to 
do  the  Parliament  that  service,  which  if  supplied  with 
moneys  may  be  expected  from  them.  The  soldiers,  both 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  i,  130. 

2  Godwin's  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  xiii. 


68       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

horse  and  foot,  want  clothes,  boots,  shoes,  and  almost  all 
necessaries  for  their  subsistence,  yea  their  exigency  is  such 
and  so  great  that  when  they  are  commanded  upon  any 
service — be  the  expedition  ever  so  emergent — many  of 
them  cannot  stir  for  want  of  money  to  shoe  their  horses. 
If  speedy  course  be  not  taken  to  supply  this  so  consider- 
able an  army  with  a  round  sum  at  least  io,ooo/. — for  a 
small  sum  will  rather  discontent  than  satisfy — it's  much 
feared  by  those  who  best  know  that  a  sudden  ruin  of  this 
brigade  will  inevitably  follow.  I  find  Sir  William  Waller 
very  much  troubled  that  he  cannot  punish  the  abounding 
vices  and  enormities  of  his  soldiers  for  fear  of  mutinies  and 
desertions  to  which  for  want  of  pay  they  are  too  apt,  which 
not  only  produces  a  contempt  of  their  officers,  but  great 
discontent  also  to  the  country,  from  they  are  sometimes 
necessitated  to  take  that  for  their  livelihood  which  the 
people  can  ill  spare."  l 

We  may  judge  from  this  communication,  as  from  his 
previous  despatch  on  the  occasion  of  his  flight  from 
Chichester  to  Portsmouth,  that  Mr.  Cawley  had  a  very 
happy  turn  for  letter-writing. 

On  the  same  day  Waller  wrote  to  the  House  to  a  similar 
effect.  He  stated  that  he  had  presumed  to  send  some 
parties  to  Godalming  and  Midhurst  to  take  up  some  coarse 
cloths,  linen,  shoes,  boots,  and  stockings  for  the  soldiers, 
and  if  there  might  be  an  assurance  given  of  the  payment 
for  these  commodities,  he  was  confident  it  would  be  best 
both  for  the  soldiers  and  the  country.2 

Waller  seems  to  have  been  a  just  and  generous  com- 
mander. In  his  "Vindication"  he  wrote:  "And  for  the 
payment  of  arrears  I  may  say  I  was  for  it  to  the  uttermost 
farthing.  I  may  not  say,  too,  who  were  against  it,  but 
those  who  seemed  to  be  pillars,  or  somewhat,  whatsoever 
they  were  it  maketh  no  matter  to  me,  contributed  nothing, 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  159.  3  Ibid.,  i,  160. 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  69 

nay,  gave  their  flat  negative  to  it.  And  truly  herein  I  did 
but  discharge  my  conscience,  for  I  was  ever  of  opinion  that 
a  soldier's  pay  is  the  justest  debt  in  the  world.  For  if  it  be 
a  crying  sin  to  keep  back  the  wages  of  an  hireling,  that 
doth  but  sweat  for  us,  it  must  needs  be  a  roaring  altitonant 
sin  to  detain  pay  of  the  soldier  that  bleeds  for  us.  There  is 
a  cry  of  blood  in  it,  and  God  will  make  inquisition  for  it!  " 

In  answer  to  Waller's  urgent  appeal  for  money  the 
House  voted  an  additional  sum  of  £5,000. 2 

If  the  Parliamentary  cause  was  to  be  saved  in  the  south- 
eastern counties  it  was  high  time  that  something  should 
be  done.  The  Cavaliers  of  Sussex,  says  Clarendon,  had 
"  formed  so  good  an  opinion  of  their  own  reputation  and 
interest  that  they  were  able,  upon  the  assistance  of  few 
troops,  to  suppress  their  neighbours  who  were  of  the  other 
party,  and  who  upon  advantage  of  the  power  they  were 
possessed  of,  exercised  their  authority  over  them  with  great 
vigour  and  insolence." 

The  Royalists  in  Kent  were  also  eager  to  make  a  move, 
and  hoped  that  Hopton's  forces,  which  were  scattered  along 
the  borders  of  Hampshire,  would  be  able  to  join  hands  with 
them.  The  position  in  Sussex  therefore  became  of  great 
importance.  It  was  considered  on  the  Parliament's  side 
that  the  state  of  the  roads  at  this  season  made  the  county 
impassable  for  an  army,  but  the  event  showed  that  this  was 
not  the  case.  A  Cavalier  raid  on  Petworth,  the  Earl  of 
Northumberland's  house,  had  already  been  made,  and  the 
raiders  had  taken  thence  "  twenty  brave  horse,  and  carried 
them  to  Oxford." 3 

On  23rd  November4  there  was  a  fight  at  South  Harting, 

1  Vindication  of  the  Character  and  Conduct  of  Sir  William  Waller, 
Knight,  London,  1793. 

2  Commons'  Journals,  iii,  319,  320. 

3  Scottish  Dove,  27th  October  1643. 

4  In   S.  A.   C.,  xxviii,    100,   the   Rev.   H.    D.  Gordon   states   that 
Chichester  was  taken  for  the  King  on  22nd  November,  and  recovered 


70       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

a  Sussex  village  on  the  borders  of  Hampshire,  in  which  was 
situate  Up  Park,  the  residence  of  Sir  William  Ford,  the 
High  Sheriff's  father.  It  seems  that  on  that  night  about 
"  six  score  of  the  Earl  of  Crawford's  regiment  entered  the 
village  very  far  spent  with  travel,  want  of  sleep,  and  food, 
and  extremely  weather-beaten  with  a  rainy  stormy  night."  * 
They  were  quartered  in  the  village,  six  of  the  principal  officers 
and  a  boy  being  accommodated  at  the  house  of  "  the  noble 
knight  and  brave  housekeeper,  Sir  John  Caryll."  Within  an 
hour  Colonel  Norton  arrived  with  four  hundred  Parliament- 
ary dragoons,  not  knowing  till  he  was  within  the  town  that  it 
was  already  occupied,  "  but  having  notice  thereof  he  caused 
his  men  to  rank  themselves  ten  and  ten,  and  so  to  make 
good  every  door  and  house  of  the  town  that  none  might 
escape;  which  being  done  the  rebels  cry  '  Horse,  Horse,'  in 
the  street,  which  the  King's  soldiers  mistaking  to  be  the 
call  of  their  own  commanders,  offered  in  divers  places  to 
come  forth,  but  were  presently  shot  and  killed,  so  that  see- 
ing no  possibility  of  bringing  forth  themselves  or  their 
horses  into  the  street,  almost  all  of  them  fled  by  backways 
on  foot  to  save  themselves,  leaving  the  rebels  outrageously 
domineering  in  the  town."  But  the  tables  were  completely 
turned  by  the  gallantry  of  the  six  officers  and  the  boy 
quartered  at  Sir  John  Caryll's  house.  Mounting  their  horses 
they  rushed  out  of  a  back  lane  upon  the  dragoons,  shouting 
"  Follow,"  "  Follow,"  "  Follow,"  as  if  they  were  leading  a 
large  force.  The  dragoons  fled  in  disorder  leaving  some 
half-dozen  of  their  number  shot  dead  by  the  officers,  about 
the  same  number,  says  the  chronicler,  as  they  had  killed  of 
the  Royalist  party.  This  incident  naturally  caused  much 
delight  and  amusement  in  Cavalier  circles.  The  number 
slain  is  probably  exaggerated.  The  Parish  Register  of 

by  Waller  on  agth  December.  He  gives  no  authority  for  these  state- 
ments, and  appears  to  be  confusing  the  proceedings  of  1642  with  those 
of  1643. 

1  Mercurius  Aulicus,  loth  December  1643. 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  71 

South  Harting  records  "  there  were  3  souldiers  buried  Nov1'. 
24th,  1643." 1 

Those  who  had  relied  on  the  mud  of  Sussex  as  a  pro- 
tection against  invasion  were  soon  undeceived.  At  the 
beginning  of  December,  taking  advantage  of  a  sharp  frost, 
Hopton  advanced  into  the  county.  "  The  exceeding  hard 
frost,"  says  Clarendon,  "  made  his  march  more  easy  through 
those  deep  and  dirty  ways,  than  better  weather  would  have 
done,  and  he  came  to  Arundel  before  there  was  any  imagin- 
ation that  he  had  that  place  in  prospect."2  Sir  Edward 
Ford  was  in  command  of  a  regiment  of  horse  in  Hopton's 
army,  and  had  with  him  many  of  the  gentlemen  of  Sussex. 
He  had  persistently  urged  the  capture  of  Arundel,  "  which 
standing  near  the  sea  would  yield  great  advantage  to  the 
King's  service,  and  keep  that  rich  corner  of  the  country  at 
his  Majesty's  devotion."3 

But  Hopton's  invasion  of  Sussex  was  not  a  mere  hap- 
hazard movement  instigated  by  the  importunities  of  Royal- 
ist gentry.  It  was,  if  somewhat  belated,  part  of  a  great 
plan  of  campaign,  in  accordance  with  which  the  King's 
forces  were  to  make  a  triple  advance  on  London ; — Hopton 
from  the  south-west,  through  Sussex  and  Surrey,  New- 
castle from  the  north,  and  the  King  himself  in  the  centre, 
from  Oxford.  Hopton's  part  failed  because  he  was  unable 
to  advance  until  too  late,  and  then  had  no  force  capable  of 
coping  with  Waller's  army;  Newcastle,  after  defeating 
Fairfax  at  Atherton  Moor,  was  checked  by  Cromwell's 
victories  of  Gainsborough  and  Winceby;  the  King,  after 
his  failure  to  capture  Gloucester  and  to  defeat  Essex  at 
Newbury,  abandoned  his  intended  march  on  London,  and 
fell  back  on  Oxford.  This  was  the  turning-point  of  the 
war.  The  flood  of  Royalist  success  was  over,  and  the  ebb 
was  running  strongly. 

Hopton's  route  was  by  Petersfield,  Harting,  and  Marden, 

'  S.  A.  C.,  xxviii,  102.  2  Ibid.,  viii,  6.  3  Ibid.^  3. 


72       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

and  thence  over  the  downs  to  Arundel;  and  in  order  to 
keep  open  the  line  of  communication,  Petersfield  and  Hart- 
ing  Place  were  garrisoned.1  To  guard  the  passes  in  the  hills 
Ford's  regiment  of  horse  was  quartered  at  his  father's  house, 
Up  Park,  throughout  December. 

Before  reaching  Arundel,  Hopton  sent  a  detachment  of 
cavalry  to  attack  Lord  Lumley's  house  at  Stanstead. 
There  seems  to  have  been  a  sharp  fight  there,  but  there  is 
much  uncertainty  as  to  the  details.  The  Royalist  force  was 
at  first  repulsed  with  loss  by  a  Parliamentary  force,  prob- 
ably under  Colonel  Stapley,  and  a  son  or  brother  of 
Endymion  Porter,  the  diplomatist,  was  sore  wounded  and 
taken  prisoner.  But  Stanstead  shortly  after  fell  into  Royal- 
ist hands.  It  was  at  that  time  a  castellated  building  with 
a  turreted  gateway  and  a  courtyard.2  Cowdray  House,  the 
magnificent  mansion  of  Lord  Montague,  where  an  almost 
royal  state  had  been  kept  up,  and  where  Queen  Elizabeth 
had  been  so  sumptuously  entertained,  was  taken  from  the 
Parliamentarians  and  garrisoned  by  Hopton,  as  also  was 
Petworth. 

The  advance  guard  of  the  Royalist  force  under  Sir  Ed- 
ward Ford  and  Sir  Edward  Bishop  arrived  before  Arundel 
on  6th  December.  They  captured  the  town  and  laid  siege  to 
the  castle.  "  The  place,"  says  Clarendon,  "  in  its  situation 
was  very  strong,  and  though  the  fortifications  were  not 
regular  but  of  the  old  fashion,  yet  the  walls  were  very 
strong,  and  the  graff  broad  and  deep ;  and  though  the  gar- 
rison was  not  numerous  enough  to  have  defended  all  the 
large  circuit  against  a  powerful  army,  yet  it  was  strong 
enough  in  all  respects  to  have  defied  all  assaults,  and  might, 
with  putting  themselves  to  any  trouble,  have  been  very 
secure  against  all  the  attempts  of  those  without.  But  the 
provisions  of  victual  or  ammunition  were  not  sufficient  to 
have  endured  any  long  restraint ;  and  the  officer  who  com- 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxviii,  100;  Royalist  Compositions,  ii,  240. 

2  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  xv. 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  73 

manded  it  had  not  been  accustomed  to  the  prospect  of  an 
enemy." l 

Meantime  great  alarm  was  felt  by  the  Parliamentarians 
throughout  Sussex.  On  7th  December  the  Committee  at 
Lewes  informed  the  House  of  the  capture  of  the  town  of 
Arundel  by  Lord  Hopton  and  of  the  danger  in  which  the 
castle  stood.  Parliament  immediately  nominated  John 
Baker  of  Mayfield  as  High  Sheriff  of  Sussex,  and  directed 
the  gentlemen  of  the  four  associated  counties  to  withdraw 
to  consider  the  question  of  sending  relief  to  Arundel  Castle, 
and  of  clearing  the  county  of  Sussex,  and  to  provide  for 
the  security  of  that  county  in  the  best  way  they  could,  and 
to  consult  with  the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant. But  for  the  energetic  dispositions  of  Colonel  Herbert 
Morley,  "  a  gentleman  of  a  nimble  apprehension  and  vigil- 
ant spirit,"2  and  his  subordinate  Captain  Temple,  the 
Royalist  forces  would  certainly  have  overrun  the  whole 
county.  Temple  saw  to  the  "  hastening  of  the  works  at 
Bramber  and  Shoreham,"  and  to  the  manning  of  them 
when  completed.3  The  Mayor  and  jurats  of  Rye  were 
ordered  to  despatch  six  of  the  biggest  and  most  serviceable 
pieces  of  ordnance  in  the  town  to  Shoreham.4  At  the  same 
time  steps  were  taken  to  remove  the  timber  and  lead  from 
Camber  Castle,  near  Rye;  the  castle  being  "soe  greatlie 
ruinated  and  broken  that  any  man  may  goe  in  there  and 
purloigne  and  take  from  thence  the  tymber  and  leade." 5 
The  corporation  complained  later  that  they  had  received 
no  consideration  for  the  £2,000  worth  of  lead  which  they 
had  saved  for  the  State.  Their  forwardness  had  exposed 
them  to  the  very  scorn  and  obloquy  of  the  county.6 

The  efforts  of  the  Parliamentarians  in  face  of  the  unex- 

1  Clarendon,  viii,  6. 

8  Cheynell,  Chillingworthi  novissima,  1644. 

3  S.  A.  C.,  v,  58. 

4  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  213.  *  Ibid. 
6  Ibid.,  p.  214. 


74       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

pected  rapidity  of  the  Royalist  advance  have  found  an  un- 
named historian,  whom  from  the  internal  evidence  of  his 
manuscripts,1  we  may  judge  to  have  been  Colonel  Edward 
Apsley  of  Worminghurst,  midway  between  Horsham  and 
Arundel,  M.P.  for  Steyning.  His  account  is  as  follows: 

"Wednesday  night,  December  6th,  Colonel  Ford  and 
Sir  Edward  Bishop  came  to  Arundel.  About  5  of  the 
clock  in  the  morning  Mr.  Knight  came  to  my  house  and 
brought  the  first  alarm,  whereupon  I  gave  the  first  alarm 
to  this  part  of  the  Country.  By  time  it  was  day,  Mr. 
Stanes  came  to  me;  finding  I  had  no  strength  to  rely  on 
for  the  company  I  had  formerly  made  use  of  was  put  into 
garrison  at  Cowdray  House,  he  persuaded  me  to  retire  my- 
self either  to  London  or  eastward.  Upon  his  reasonable 
persuasions,  as  I  was  going  to  give  order  to  have  my 
horses  made  ready,  I  saw  some  twenty  or  thirty  men  in  my 
hall,  standing  with  their  arms  as  ready  for  service.  Where- 
upon turning  to  Mr.  Stanes  I  told  him  that  it  should  never 
be  said  that  I  should  abandon  the  country  so  long  as  any 
would  stand  to  me,  and  wished  him  to  move  me  no  farther, 
for  I  was  resolved  that — hap  what  hap  could.  Whereupon 
I  gave  order  to  Captain  Leighton  to  exercise  those  men 
he  had.  As  I  was  at  dinner  there  came  a  report  of  2000  of 
the  enemy  coming  within  two  miles,  viz.,  to  Chiltington 
Common.  I  sent  out  to  the  men  to  bid  them  look  to  their 
watches,  but  before  I  had  dined  the  report  was  contra- 
dicted. There  were  spies  sent  out,  whereof  one,  Mr.  Knight's 
man,  went  into  the  town,  and  there  lost  me  a  man,  but 
very  honestly  returned,  and  brought  certain  intelligence  of 
the  enemy. 

"So  soon  as  it  was  dark,  I  took  horse  and  rode  to  Horsham, 
and  sending  for  Mr.  Shephard  and  some  other  gentlemen 
of  the  town,  I  inquired  what  strength  they  could  make. 
They  told  me  they  thought  200.  We  resolved  that  they 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  57-9. 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  75 

should  come  to  my  house  the  next  day.  I  took  horse  again 
and  with  the  help  of  Sir  Thomas  Siffield's  guide,  got  to 
Bramber  by  sunrise.  There  and  at  Shoreham  I  found 
Captain  Temple,  Captain  Carleton,  Captain  Surrenden, 
and  Captain  Fuller;  before  night  Colonel  Morley  came  to 
us  also  from  Lewes.  Captain  Morley l  had  sent  him  that 
had  been  employed  as  a  spy  with  a  letter  to  me  to  have  a 
rendezvous  appointed,  for  there  were  200  foot  and  120 
horse  assembled,  and  to  let  me  know  that  Sir  E.  Bishop 
had  driven  away  all  my  sheep.  It  was  agreed  the  rendezvous 
to  be  at  Cobden  Hill  by  12  of  the  clock.  Next  day 
between  one  and  two  Colonel  Morley,  Captain  Temple  and 
myself  came  to  them  with  200  dragoons,  under  Captain 
Carleton  and  Captain  Surrenden.  Captain  Temple  took 
order  to  hasten  the  works  at  Bramber  and  Shoreham  by 
the  pioneers,  and  Captain  Fuller  and  his  company  to  man 
them. 

"Upon  the  information  of  the  spy,  Colonel  Morley,  Captain 
Temple  and  the  rest  of  the  council  of  war  resolved  to  fall 
into  Arundel,  or  if  we  were  hindered  of  that  by  the  break- 
ing of  the  bridge  by  the  enemy,  to  draw  a  breast-work  at 
the  head  of  the  causeway,  and  so  block  them  up  at  least  on 
that  side.  Hereupon  we  drew  the  forces  into  several  bodies. 
Now  my  Lord  Hopton  came  into  the  town  since  my  spy's 
coming  out.  Upon  this  resolution,  we  marched  in  our 
several  divisions  for  Parham  Park,  and  intended  for 
Arundel  we  took  the  word  '  God  with  us.' 

"The  day  was  misty,  especially  on  those  high  hills;  so  was 
the  night;  only  now  and  then  upon  a  gale  of  wind  the  mist 
brake  up.  In  our  march,  false  intelligence  was  given  that 
the  enemy  had  laid  Houghton  Bridge ;  it  was  then  thought 
not  fit  to  engage  the  body  in  those  narrow  ways  from 
Parham  Ash  to  Arundel  in  the  night,  till  we  knew  whether 
the  bridge  were  laid  or  no,  doubting  that  the  enemy  had 

1  Colonel  Herbert  Morley's  younger  brother,  William. 


76       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

notice  of  our  advance,  and  so  might  distress  us  in  the  way. 
Whereupon  by  the  advice  of  the  council  of  war,  the  forlorn 
hope  was  turned  into  a  party,  and  sent,  commanded  by 
Lieutenant  Burton,  to  see  whether  the  bridge  was  laid  or 
no.  Before  the  party  could  return  to  the  body,  the  light  of 
the  moon  (which  have  much  assisted  us  in  the  bottoms 
where  the  mist  was  not  so  thick,  and  the  ways  very  narrow) 
would  be  so  far  spent,  that  it  was  not  possible  for  the  foot 
to  march  to  Arundel,  whereupon  they  were  sent  to  quarter 
at  Parham,  with  whom  I  was  going  till  stayed  by  Colonel 
Morley.  The  horse  were  kept  upon  the  hill  to  get  intelli- 
gence of  the  enemy,  and  to  do  service  upon  their  quarters,  if 
we  could  find  them  out. 

"  Colonel  Morley  and  myself  with  some  others  rode  out 
upon  the  hills  to  discover  the  country  and  to  see  what 
became  of  the  party  sent  out.  In  our  absence  the  horsemen 
unbitted  their  horses,  and  turned  them  into  a  load  of  hay 
which  they  had  taken  from  the  cows.  In  our  return  there 
was  one  musket  shot  off,  and  some  dags1  that  sparkled  fire 
much  like  a  match  lighted  with  gunpowder.  This  was  a 
party  of  the  enemy  upon  our  body,  unsuspected  by  us. 
Colonel  Morley  was  told  it  was  not  well  to  lie  so  openly; 
he  said  he  would  close  them ;  one  replied  that  they  thought 
if  he  did  but  speak  to  them,  it  was  enough.  He  rode 
towards  them,  and  I  rode  on  softly  upon  the  way,  till  meet- 
ing this  party  of  the  enemy  coming  up  from  our  own  body, 
out  of  any  road,  taking  it  to  be  a  party  of  our  own,  for  the 
mist  fell  thick  that  I  could  not  discern  my  horse  length.  I 
rode  to  them;  they  said,  'who  are  you?'  I  said,  'a  friend'; 
they  said,  'who  are  you  for?'  I  replied,  'what!  do  you  not 
know  me?'  and  gave  them  the  word,  '  God  with  us.'  They 
asked  me  again,  '  who  are  you  for? '  I  returned  the  word 
again  angrily,  doubting  that  they  might  not  know  the  word. 
With  that,  one  of  them  caught  hold  of  my  horse,  another 

1  Pistols. 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  77 

of  my  sword,  and  asked,  '  who  I  was  for? '  I  said, '  for  king 
and  parliament ' ;  and  laying  my  hand  upon  my  sword,  they 
pulled  and  brake  it.  A  third  came  up  and  caught  hold  of 
my  rocket  coat,  and  threw  it  over  my  head,  when  divers 
with  their  drawn  swords  rode  about  me,  pulling  by  my  coat 
that  was  about  my  head.  I  told  the  properest  man  that  I 
could  spy  (this  man  I  understood  to  be  called  Mr.  Montague) 
that  I  was  his  prisoner.  He  replied  that  none  should  wrong 
me,  but  before  they  would  let  go  my  horse,  caused  me  pre- 
sently to  alight.  They  took  my  coat  and  gloves,  and  told 
me  they  should  search  my  pockets.  I  replied  they  should 
not  need,  for  there  was  money  for  them,  and  so  gave  the 
silver  that  I  had  in  that  pocket,  some  to  one,  some  to 
another,  wherefore  the  one  would  not  let  the  other  rifle 
me;  whereby  I  had  the  opportunity  to  convey  away  Sir 
William  Waller's  letters,  and  the  Committee's,  which  I  had 
then  about  me,  and  left  a  little  money  for  myself. 

"  Mr.  Montague  gat  upon  my  horse,  and  told  me  that  I 
should  get  upon  his.  This  was  a  poor  tired  jade.  I  was 
long  ere  I  got  up.  They  held  their  pistols  to  me,  and  said, 
1  shoot  him,  shoot  him.'  I  pulling  the  saddle  on  my  side, 
turned  my  breast  to  their  pistols,  and  said, '  Why !  shoot  me 
then !  for  I  cannot  get  up.'  Then  said  one, '  Why  do  you 
not  alight  and  help  him  up?'  With  that  one  alighted  and 
helped  me  up.  This  I  did  delay,  expecting  relief.  They 
asked  how  strong  we  were.  I  told  them  between  300  and 
400.  This  was  true  but  the  rest  I  concealed,  namely,  that 
our  men  were  unbitted  and  out  of  order,  and  unable  to 
make  any  resistance.  The  fear  of  their  number,  the  not 
knowing  their  disorder,  caused  the  enemy  to  haste  away 
almost  in  like  disorder." 

What  happened  to  the  writer  of  this  interesting  story 
does  not  appear,  as  his  manuscript  ends  here.  Probably  he 
was  taken  to  Arundel  as  a  prisoner.  Meantime  the  castle 
had  fallen.  On  the  third  day  after  Lord  Hopton's  arrival 
he  sent  in  a  message  threatening  severe  measures  in  case 


78       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

he  was  driven  to  assault  it,  and  the  officer  in  command, 
Captain  Capcot,  seeing  that  further  resistance  was  hopeless, 
surrendered.1  Colonel  Morley,  having  found  it  impossible 
to  relieve  Arundel  or  to  hold  Houghton  Bridge,  fell  back 
on  the  Adur.  Here  Temple  successfully  defended  Bramber 
Castle  against  a  Royalist  attack.  Of  this  affair  the  voluble 
Puritan  divine,  Dr.  Cheynell,  says:  "Upon  the  I2th  of 
December  I  visited  a  brave  soldier  of  my  acquaintance, 
Captain  James  Temple,  who  did  that  day  defend  the  fort 
of  Bramber  against  a  bold  and  daring  enemy  to  the  wonder 
of  all  the  country ;  and  I  did  not  marvel  at  it,  for  he  is  a 
man  that  hath  his  head  full  of  stratagems,  his  heart  full  of 
piety  and  valour,  and  his  hand  as  full  of  success  as  it  is  of 
dexterity."  * 

Another  skirmish  took  place  a  little  later  at  Bramber 
Bridge,  as  related  in  the  very  interesting  letters  of  the  Rev. 
John  Coulton,  Chaplain  in  the  Parliamentary  Army,  to  his 
"  most  dear  loving  and  kind  friend  and  brother  in  Jesus 
Christ,"  Mr.  Samuel  Jeake  of  Rye.3  Mr.  Coulton  describes 
his  personal  experiences  with  the  force  hastily  raised  for 
the  defence  of  East  Sussex.  "  That  Saturday  I  came  from 

1  Mercurius  Civicus,  No.  29,  December  7  to  14,  1643. 

2  Cheynell,  Chillingworthi  novissima. 

3  S.  A.  C.,  ix,  51.   Samuel  Jeake  of  Rye  was  at  this  time  only  twenty 
years  of  age.   The  Parish  Register  of  Rye  contains  the  entry:  "  1623, 
Oct  12,  Sammewell,  son  of  Henry  Jake."   The  Jeakes  were  a  family 
of  Huguenot  origin,  their  name  being  doubtless  derived  from  Jacques. 
At  first  a  notary-public,  and  afterwards  an  attorney,  he  was  also  a 
most  laborious  student  and  a  prolific  writer.   His  most  important  work 
was  "  The  Charters  of  the  Cinque-Ports,  two  Ancient  Towns  (Rye  and 
Winchelsea),  and  their  Members,  translated  into  English,  with  anno- 
tations historical  and   critical  thereon."    An   active  Puritan,  and  a 
preacher,  he  suffered  persecution  for  nonconformity  in  Charles  II's 
reign,  and  was  excommunicated.   He  died  in  1690.  "  Upon  the  whole," 
says  Mr.  Lower,  "  Sussex  has  produced  few  men  more  remarkable 
than  the  elder  Samuel  Jeake.    He  was  a  man  of  capacious  intellect,  a 
sound  lawyer  and  municipal  antiquary,  and  good  mathematician  and 
a  student  of  every  branch  of  human  knowledge  "  (Worthies  of  Sussex, 
p.  125).   See  S.  A.  C.,  xiii,  60. 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  79 

Rye,  I  marched  to  Robert  Rolfe's  house  at  Mayfield,  where 
I  quartered  all  night ;  the  next  day  we  marched  to  Port- 
slade.  On  Christmas  day  we  came  to  Shoreham,  and 
about  eleven  o'clock  Sergeant  Rolfe  shot  off  a  carbine  and 
withal  his  thumb.  I  stayed  with  him  all  Tuesday  and  saw 
him  in  good  posture,  and  so  I  went  to  my  colours."  He 
found  his  regiment  at  Arundel,  and  with  it  executed  some 
scouting  operations,  and  discovered  Hopton  at  Petersfield. 
"  The  return  of  us  was  the  next  day  about  ten  o'clock ; 
ourselves  and  horse  had  no  meat  but  a  piece  of  bread  and 
cheese,  and  our  horses,  while  we  ate  it,  had  hay  not  half  an 
hour's  time;  prize  your  fireside  comforts,  you  know  not  the 
hardships  of  war;  nay,  though  it  be  in  a  flowing  county 
as  is  Sussex.  .  .  .  The  enemy  attempted  Bramber  bridge, 
but  our  brave  Carleton  and  Everden  with  his  dragoons, 
and  our  Colonel's  horse  welcomed  them  with  drakes  and 
muskets,  sending  some  eight  or  nine  men  to  hell  (I  fear), 
and  one  trooper  to  Arundel  Castle  prisoner,  and  one  of 
Captain  Everden's  dragoons  to  heaven,  all  this  while  the 
enemy  held  the  castle,  and  a  party  seized  Wiston  house 
within  a  mile  of  Bramber  bridge." 

The  Captain  Carleton  here  mentioned  was  a  son  of  Dr. 
Carleton,  Bishop  of  Chichester,  1619-1628.  He  is  described 
by  Cheynell l  as  "  the  anti-prelatical  son  of  a  learned 
prelate,  a  man  of  bold  presence,  and  fixed  resolution,  who 
loves  his  country  better  than  his  life."  Captain  Everden 
was,  according  to  the  same  authority,  "  a  man  of  slow 
speech  but  sure  performance,  who  deserves  that  motto  of 
the  old  Roman :  Non  tarn  facile  loquor,  quam  quod  locutus 
sum  praesto" 

But  although  a  Royalist  advance  east  of  the  Adur  was 
prevented,  the  prospects  of  the  Parliamentary  party  looked 
black.  Their  only  hope  lay  in  the  intervention  of  Waller, 
and  he  was  known  to  be  in  difficulties.  It  is  not  surprising 

1  Chillingworthi  novissima. 


8o       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

that  one  at  least  of  the  Parliamentary  leaders  should  seem 
to  have  thought  it  advisable  to  curry  favour  with  the  other 
side.  In  August  1644  articles  were  formulated  against 
Thomas  Middleton,  M.P.  for  Horsham,  and  one  of  the 
Committee  for  Sussex,  alleging  that  in  the  previous  Dec- 
ember, when  the  King's  forces  invaded  Sussex,  pretending 
himself  to  be  sick,  he  would  not  in  any  way  show  himself 
against  the  King's  forces,  but  discouraged  the  countrymen 
that  took  up  arms  for  the  Parliament  when  the  King's 
forces  were  within  a  few  miles  of  Horsham,  and  that  he  was 
in  all  probability  consenting  to  the  bringing  of  some  of  the 
King's  forces  to  take  Horsham.1 

Middleton,  who  resided  at  Hills  Place,  seems  to  have 
been  absolved  from  this  accusation,  but  he  was  arrested  in 
1648  on  a  charge  of  being  concerned  in  the  rising  which 
took  place  at  Horsham  in  that  year.  A  somewhat  ridiculous 
incident  of  an  earlier  date  is  related,  in  which  he  was  the 
involuntary  cause  of  alarming  all  London.  The  report  of 
a  plot  was  reading  in  the  House  of  Commons  (May  1641) 
when  some  members  in  the  gallery  stood  up,  the  better  to 
hear  the  report,  and  Middleton  and  Mr.  Moyle,  of  Cornwall, 
"  two  persons  of  good  bigness,  weighed  down  a  board  in  the 
gallery  which  gave  so  great  a  crack,  that  some  members 
thought  it  was  a  plot  indeed,"  and  an  alarm  of  fire,  and  of 
a  malignant  conspiracy,  spread  rapidly  over  the  town,  so 
that  a  regiment  of  trained  bands  was  collected  in  the  City 
upon  beat  of  drum,  and  marched  as  far  as  Covent  Garden 
to  meet  these  imaginary  evils.2 

But  while  West  Sussex  was  falling  into  Royalist^  hands, 
and  East  Sussex  was  with  difficulty  defending  its  border, 
the  reports  of  Royalist  successes  were  affording  the  stimulus 
which  was  wanted  to  induce  the  House  to  make  due  pro- 
vision for  Waller's  army.  Early  in  December  Waller  went 
to  London  "  to  be  feasted  and  lectured,"  but  he  seems  to 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  183. 

2  Rush  worth,  v,  744 ;  S.  A.  C.,  v,  87. 


THE  ROYALIST  INVASION  81 

have  done  the  lecturing  himself,  and  to  some  effect. 
"  Waller's  journey  to  London  answered  his  expectation, 
and  his  presence  had  an  extraordinary  operation  to  procure 
anything  desired.  He  reported  the  Lord  Hopton's  forces 
to  be  much  greater  than  they  were,  that  his  own  might  be 
made  proportionable  to  encounter  them;  and  the  quick 
progress  he  had  made  in  Sussex,  and  his  taking  Arundel 
Castle,  made  them  thought  to  be  greater  than  he  reported 
them  to  be.  His  so  easily  possessing  himself  of  a  place  of 
that  strength,  which  they  supposed  to  have  been  impreg- 
nable, and  in  a  county  where  the  King  had  before  no 
footing,  awakened  all  their  jealousies  and  apprehensions  of 
the  affections  of  Kent  and  all  other  places,  and  looked 
like  a  land-flood,  that  might  roll  they  knew  not  how  far;  so 
that  there  needed  no  importunate  solicitation  to  provide  a 
remedy  against  this  growing  evil."  1 

The  House  requested  the  City  of  London  to  allow  "  the 
longer  stay  of  their  forces,"  which  were  to  have  been 
withdrawn,  and  500  men  were  sent  to  Farnham  from 
the  Windsor  garrison.  Waggons  went  from  London  laden 
with  ammunition,  and  with  leather  pieces  of  ordnance, 
lately  invented  by  Colonel  Wems,  General  of  Ordnance 
and  Train.  "  These  leather  pieces  are  of  very  great  use, 
and  very  easy  and  light  of  carriage.  One  horse  may  draw 
a  piece,  which  will  carry  a  bullet  of  a  pound  and  half 
weight  and  do  execution  very  far." 2 

1  Clarendon,  viii,  9.  3  True  Informer,  gth  December  1643. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL 

AFTER  a  successful  attack  on  Alton,1  in  which  he 
took  several  hundred  prisoners,  including  numerous 
Irish,  Waller  marched  out  of  Farnham  on  the  afternoon  of 
Sunday,  i/th  December,  to  meet  the  victorious  Royalists 
in  Sussex.  It  will  be  remembered  that  they  were,  in 
addition  to  smaller  positions,  in  occupation  of  the  great 
houses  of  Petworth,  Cowdray,  and  Stanstead,  and  of  the 
Castle  of  Arundel.  The  frost  was  still  holding,  and  Waller 
was  able  to  move  with  extraordinary  rapidity.  Occupying 
Haslemere  on  Sunday  night,  he  "  wheeled  about "  towards 
Midhurst  on  Monday  morning  in  hope  of  surprising  the 
garrison  at  Cowdray,  consisting,  as  he  says  in  his  des- 
patches, of  four  troops  of  cavalry  and  100  infantry.  He 
sent  two  regiments  of  cavalry  to  block  up  the  various 
roads  in  the  neighbourhood,  but  the  Royalists  were  "  too 
nimble"  for  him,  and  escaped  to  Arundel.  An  officer  of 
his  force  wrote  a  letter,  published  at  the  time,2  which  well 
describes  his  subsequent  proceedings :  "  [Cowdray]  house 
is  now  possessed  by  the  Parliament  forces  where  we  stayed 
that  night,  and  furnished  the  said  castle  (for  indeed  it  may 
well  be  called  so  in  regard  of  the  strength  thereof)  with  all 
necessaries  for  defence  to  awe  the  Papists  and  malignants, 
wherewith  the  said  town  is  much  infested  and  infected. 
Tuesday  morning  we  marched  from  Midhurst,  sending  out 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  ccccxcviii,  76. 

2  Mercurius  Civicus,  2ist  December  1643. 

82 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  83 

a  party  of  horse  to  Petworth,  having  thought  to  surprise 
the  enemy  there,  but  they  fled  before  our  success,  Hopton 
and  the  great  ones  to  Winchester  and  the  rest  to  Arundel 
with  bag  and  baggage." 

Cowdray  seems  to  have  been  stripped  of  its  contents, 
which  were  doubtless  of  great  value.  In  the  Journals  of 
the  House  of  Commons  are  the  following  entries: 

"  ist  April  1644.  Ordered,  that  Capt.  Higgons  do 
forthwith  send  up  the  plate,  treasure,  and  other  goods  found 
in  the  Lord  Montague's  house. 

"  i8M  May  1644.  Ordered,  that  the  goods  brought  up 
from  Cowdray  House  in  Sussex,  by  order  of  this  House, 
be  forthwith  stored  up  in  the  stores  at  Camden  House. 

"  6th  June  1 644.  Ordered,  that  the  goods  that  are  brought 
up,  which  were  seized  at  the  Lord  Montague's  house  in 
Sussex,  and  particularly  those  goods  remaining  at  "  The 
Talbot,"  in  Southwark,  in  Captain  Higgons's  custody,  be 
carried  into  Camden  House,  and  all  the  said  goods  be 
there  sold  to  the  best  value." * 

But  these  operations  by  the  way  caused  little  check  to 
the  rapidity  of  Waller's  advance.  He  appeared  before 
Arundel  on  the  evening  of  Tuesday,  the  I9th,  and  the  army 
lay  that  night  "  on  a  heath  within  a  mile  of  the  town." 2 

1  "There  was  a  constant  stream  of  traffic  in  carts  laden  with  goods 
seized  in  the  counties  and  conveyed  to  the  Guildhall  in  London,  where 
the  sale  of  these  effects  took  place.   These  sales  made  a  rare  harvest 
for  the  dealers,  who  bought  up  valuable  heirlooms  '  dirt  cheap.'   The 
goods  were  '  sold  by  the  candle,'  and  some  of  the  more  crafty  ones  got 
near  enough  the  elbow  of  the  auctioneer  to  control  the  flame.   A  large 
buyer  named  Fletcher  was  accused  that  he  stood  '  so  near  the  candle 
that  it  goes  out  at  the  casting  up  of  his  hand,  or  the  wind  of  his  mouth 
at  his  last  bidding,  when  others  would  have  bidden  more.'   The  refer- 
ence is  of  course  to  the  old  fashion  of  burning  a  piece  of  candle  and 
knocking  down  to  the  last  bidder  before  the  flame  expired  "  (Kingston's 
Hertfordshire  during  the  Great  Civil  War,  p.  154  n.). 

2  The  account  of  the  siege  of  Arundel  is  mainly  based  on  Waller's 
own  despatches,  which  were  promptly  published  (Full  Relation  of  Late 


84       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

After  his  capture  of  Arundel  Castle  on  9th  December, 
Lord  Hopton  had  left  Sir  Edward  Ford  in  command, 
with  more  than  200  men  and  "  many  good  officers,  who 
desired  or  were  very  willing  to  stay  there,  as  a  place  very 
favourable  for  the  levies  of  men  which  they  all  intended, 
and  it  may  be  that  the  more  remained  there  out  of  the 
weariness  and  fatigue  of  their  late  marches,  and  that  they 
might  spend  the  rest  of  the  winter  with  better  accommoda- 
tion. The  Governor  was  a  man  of  honesty  and  courage, 
but  unacquainted  with  that  affair,  having  no  other  ex- 
perience of  war  than  what  he  had  learned  since  these 
troubles.  The  officers  were  many  without  command ;  many 
whereof  were  of  natures  not  easy  to  be  governed,  nor  like 
to  conform  themselves  to  such  strict  rules  as  the  condition 
of  the  place  required,  or  to  use  that  industry  as  the  exi- 
gence they  were  like  to  be  in  made  necessary."  Amongst 
them  was  "  Colonel  Bamford,  an  Irishman,  though  he 
called  himself  Bamfield;  who  being  a  man  of  wit  and 
parts,  applied  all  his  faculties  to  improve  the  faction,  to 
which  they  were  all  naturally  inclined,  with  a  hope  to  make 
himself  governor."  1 

Doubtless  the  garrison  was  much  increased  by  the 
refugees  driven  in  from  Cowdray  and  other  positions  on 
the  line  of  Waller's  march. 

Hopton  had  caused  various  entrenchments  to  be  made 
for  the  defence  of  the  town,  which  it  was  Waller's  first  care 
to  capture.  At  dawn  on  Wednesday,  the  2Oth,  he  surveyed 
the  enemy's  position  and  speedily  found,  he  says,  a  place 
"  to  flank  their  line  with  our  ordnance.  We  fell  upon  the 
north  side  of  the  works  "  while  another  detachment  made 
a  simultaneous  attack  on  the  south-west  side  of  the  town. 
After  about  half  an  hour's  fighting,  the  outworks,  with 
some  eighty  prisoners,  were  taken.  About  ten  o'clock  the 

Proceedings  of  Sir  W.  Waller,  John  Field,  8th  January  1664),  and 
have  been  several  times  reprinted. 
1  Clarendon,  B.  viii,  8. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  85 

Cavalier  horse  made  "  a  brave  sally "  but  was  repulsed. 
The  storming  party  "  beat  them  into  the  Castle,  and  en- 
tered the  first  gate  with  them;  the  second  they  made  good 
and  barricaded,  and  there  they  are  welcome."  Scouring  the 
streets,  the  Parliamentarians  captured  a  captain,  a  lieu- 
tenant, and  several  other  prisoners.  Certain  townsmen 
having  taken  refuge  in  the  Church  of  St.  Nicholas,  pre- 
parations were  made  to  smoke  them  out,  whereupon  they 
surrendered  at  discretion.  Waller  was  now  in  possession 
of  the  town  of  Arundel.  The  garrison  kept  up  a  brisk  fire 
of  musketry  from  the  Castle,  but  were  not  able  to  com- 
mand any  considerable  portion  of  the  town.  Only  three  or 
four  men  are  said  to  have  been  killed  in  the  attack,  but 
Lieut-Colonel  Ramsay,  who  was  one  of  the  first  to  enter 
the  town,  "  whilst  casting  his  eyes  towards  the  Castle,  was 
unfortunately  slain  with  a  musket  ball  from  thence;  he  was 
interred  on  the  following  Saturday,  six  trumpeters  going 
before  the  corpse  with  a  mournful  sound,  his  sergeant- 
major,  to  whom  his  place  fell,  following,  and  then  all  the 
officers  of  his  regiment." 

Immediately  after  the  capture  of  the  town  Waller  had  a 
narrow  escape.  "  A  perfidious  rascal  for  hire,  or  some 
other  wicked  end,  would  have  killed  our  noble  general ;  but 
it  pleased  God  that  his  musket  went  not  off,  so  that  his 
wicked  design  was  prevented,  and  himself  deservedly 
hanged."  l 

The  Rev.  John  Coulton,  whose  letter  to  Mr.  Samuel 
Jeake  has  already  been  quoted,  states  that  Sir  William 
"took  Arundel  town  with  140  prisoners  to  boot,  whereof 
60  bear  arms  for  the  Parliament,  the  rest  are  sent  to  Lon- 
don"; and  he  adds,  "our  Wiston  Cavaliers  left  the  house 
and  fled  for  their  lives,  and  in  their  march  at  Findon  left 
3  carts  laden  with  plunder,  the  which  we  with  a  party  of 
1 2  horse  fetched  home  and  refreshed  our  weary  soldiers ; 

1  A  wicked  plot  against  the  person  of  Sir  William  Waller,  etc. 
London,  printed  for  Robert  Wood,  MDCXLIV,  January  nth. 


86       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

these  things  being  by  the  Lord's  hand  done,  my  Colonel 
[Morley]  advanced  to  Arundel,  leaving  at  Shoreham  Capt. 
Temple,  at  Bramber  Capt.  Fuller  and  Capt.  Everden.  .  .  . 
Tell  Widow  Dod  I  eat  and  drink  with  both  her  brothers 
William  and  John,  they  are  very  well;  only  my  uncle  Pye 
wants  his  feather  bed  to  sleep  on." 

The  readiness  of  prisoners  to  take  service  with  their 
captors,  of  which  Mr.  Coulton  gives  an  instance,  is  a  curious 
feature  of  the  Civil  War.  It  suggests  that  they  were  com- 
batants rather  from  necessity  than  conviction,  and  that  the 
division  of  the  country  into  two  well-defined  parties  was 
less  thorough  than  we  are  sometimes  tempted  to  assume.  Of 
the  prisoners  taken  by  Waller  at  Alton  on  I2th  December, 
a  number,  variously  stated  as  being  300,  500,  and  600,  ac- 
cepted the  offer  of  freedom  on  condition  of  taking  the 
Covenant,  and  engaging  to  serve  the  Parliament.  During 
the  following  week  they  proved  the  groundlessness  of  the 
doubts  which  were  freely  expressed  as  to  their  fidelity  by 
a  fierce  assault  upon  their  former  comrades  at  Arundel.1 
The  day  of  Cromwell's  East  Anglian  army,  invincible  from 
its  combination  of  perfect  military  discipline  with  intense 
religious  enthusiasm,  was  yet  to  come.  It  was  not  only  on 
the  Parliamentary  side  that  this  pressing  of  prisoners  into 
service  was  practised.  In  November  1642  the  King  sur- 
prised the  Red  Trained  Bands  of  the  City  of  London  at 
Brentford,  and  threatened  to  hang  the  prisoners  if  they  did 
not  join  his  army.  "  A  smith  was  brought  to  burn  them 
on  the  cheeks,"  whereupon  200  declared  for  the  royal  ser- 
vice, and  "  140  tendered  their  persons  to  be  stigmatized 
rather  than  yield  ";  they  were,  however,  released  unhurt.2 
Considering  that  they  were  mere  London  apprentices,  the 
number  of  those  who  elected  to  stand  to  their  colours  and 
take  their  punishment  was  very  creditable. 

Waller  now  addressed  himself  to  the  siege  of  Arundel 

1  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  xvi. 

2  S.  A.  C.,  v,  64. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  87 

Castle,  which  resisted  him  for  seventeen  days.  As  a  token 
of  defiance  the  garrison  hoisted  a  red  flag,  for,  says  White- 
lock,  "the  Earl  of  Essex's  colours  were  a  deep  yellow; 
others  setting  up  another  colour  were  held  malignants,  and 
ill-affected  to  the  Parliament's  cause.  So  small  a  thing  is 
taken  notice  of  in  the  jealousies  of  war."  l  Waller's  force 
consisted  of  not  less  than  6,000  men,  and  he  was  ex- 
pecting large  reinforcements.  He  says:  "I  am  very  weak 
in  foot  and  my  horse  so  hacknied  out  that  they  are  ready 
to  lie  down  under  us.  I  expect  Colonel  Bayne  here  this 
day  and  Colonel  Morley."  The  first-named  officer  was 
bringing  up  a  cavalry  reinforcement,  600  strong,  sent 
to  Waller  by  the  Earl  of  Essex.  On  Thursday,  2ist 
December,  Colonel  Morley  arrived  with  his  regiment,  in 
which  were,  as  we  know,  the  two  brothers  of  the  widow 
Dod,  the  Rev.  John  Coulton,  and  his  uncle  Pye.  A  first 
consignment  of  six  waggons  of  provisions,  collected  by 
well-wishers  in  the  county,  to  be  followed  by  others,  also 
arrived.  The  long  frost,  which  had  made  easy  the  marches 
both  of  Hopton  and  Waller,  at  length  broke,  and  the  be- 
siegers were  exposed  to  storms  of  wind  and  rain.  As  far 
as  possible  they  were  billeted  in  the  town,  but  the  musketry 
fire  from  the  garrison  continued  harassing.  In  order  to 
check  this  Major  Bodley,  "  perceiving  divers  in  the  castle 
look  forth  in  a  balcony,"  posted  himself  "  in  a  private  place 
of  advantage,"  and  by  a  well-directed  volley  "  slew  and 
wounded  divers  of  the  enemy." 

In  addition  two  "saker  drakes,"  or  light  field  pieces, 
were  mounted  that  night  on  the  tower  of  Arundel  Church, 
and  next  day,  together  with  certain  musketeers,  they 
poured  a  continuous  fire  into  the  upper  portion  of  the 
castle.  Further  reinforcements  arrived  from  Kent,  Sir 
Michael  Livesay  with  a  regiment  of  horse,  and  Sir  William 
Springate  with  a  regiment  of  infantry.  Desertions  from 

1  Whitelock's  Memorials. 


88       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  castle  began  to  be  very  numerous,  and  continued 
throughout  the  siege,  A  certain  Richard  Smith,  a  deserter 
from  the  army  of  the  Parliament,  was  arrested  by  a  guard 
four  miles  distant.  He  had  been  hired  to  go  to  Hopton 
for  aid,  for  a  sum  of  "  twenty  shillings  of  which  he  had 
twelve  pence  in  hand."  When  questioned  by  the  captain 
of  the  guard,  he  said  he  had  lost  the  letter  to  Lord  Hopton. 
Having  been  proved  to  be  "  an  arch  spy  in  our  army,"  he 
was  hanged  on  the  bridge,  within  sight  of  the  castle.  He 
had  described  the  state  of  the  garrison;  their  strength  was 
"  1,000  foot  and  100  horse,  but  no  provender  for  them. 
They  had  store  of  oxen,  but  no  beer  or  wine  save  water 
only,  which  was  in  the  Castle  well;  that  the  common 
soldiers  with  him  had  that  day  half  a  pound  of  bread 
weighed  out  to  them." 

Steps  were  taken  to  drain  off  the  water  of  Swanboume 
Lake,  which  supplied  the  castle  wells,  and  on  Saturday 
this  work  was  completed.  On  Sunday  further  reinforce- 
ments arrived  from  Kent,  consisting  of  two  regiments 
under  Colonels  Head  and  Dixie,  which  together  with 
"  divers  regiments  from  Sussex"  raised  Waller's  force  to  a 
total  of  not  less  than  10,000  men.  On  Monday  a  sortie 
was  attempted  from  the  castle,  but  driven  back.  Waller, 
sure  of  his  prey,  refused  to  exchange  prisoners,  or  to 
promise  quarter  in  case  of  surrender. 

The  only  hope  for  the  garrison  lay  in  relief  by  Lord 
Hopton.  But  Hopton  was  a  broken  reed.  At  his  head- 
quarters at  Winchester  he  was  suffering  much  from  dissen- 
sions in  his  heterogeneous  army.  The  "  English-Irish " 
contingent,  which  had  been  brought  over  to  fight  on  the 
royal  side,  was  continually  at  loggerheads  with  the  Corn- 
ishmen,  who  were  numerous  in  the  force.  From  bandying 
opprobrious  epithets,  "Cornish  Choughs,  Puritans,  and 
Roundheads"  on  the  one  side,  and  "Irish  kernes  and 
Popish  dogs "  on  the  other,  they  fell  to  fighting.  Several 
Cornishmen  were  killed,  and  their  comrades,  variously 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  89 

estimated  at  500  to  1,500,  deserted  their  colours  and  re- 
turned to  their  homes.1 

The  bringing  over  of  Irishmen  to  fight  on  English  soil 
was  regarded  with  great  indignation  by  the  Parlia- 
mentarians, and  with  disfavour  by  many  Royalists.  It  was 
looked  upon  very  much  in  the  same  light  as  the  employ- 
ment of  natives  as  combatants  in  the  South  African  War. 
Whitelock  says:  "  Divers  of  the  Irish,  about  1500,  were  cast 
away  at  sea  coming  to  serve  his  Majesty.  It  was  observed 
that  these  bloody  Irish  coming  over  hither  never  did  any 
service  considerable,  but  were  cut  off,  some  in  one  place 
and  some  in  another.  In  all  places  the  vengeance  of  God 
follows  bloodthirsty  men." 2  In  the  main  the  Civil  War, 
considering  its  date,  was  conducted  with  remarkable 
humanity,  and  the  presence  of  an  Irish  contingent,  re- 
garded as  composed  of  irresponsible  foreigners,  lacking  the 
restraints  which  influenced  both  English  parties,  was 
feared  as  likely  to  be  the  occasion  of  outrage  and  bar- 
barity. 

But  in  spite  of  his  troubles,  Hopton  succeeded  in  march- 
ing out  of  Winchester  with  2,000  cavalry  and  1,500  in- 
fantry. He  reached  Petersfield  on  Wednesday  the  27th. 
The  news  of  his  movement  raised  fresh  hopes  in  the 
garrison,  who  "  came  forth  to  the  balcony  again,"  only  to 
be  shot  down  by  Waller's  musketeers  posted  in  the  ruins 
of  an  old  chapel.  The  besieged  had  managed  to  keep  in 
communication  with  Hopton,  and  Waller's  men  discovered 
an  ox-hide  boat  in  the  river,  which  had  been  used  to  ferry 
over  a  messenger.  Desertions  from  the  castle  were 
numerous,  and  continued  to  be  so  until  the  end  of  the 
siege. 

On  Thursday  the  28th  a  flag  of  truce  was  hoisted,  and 
an  application  was  made  by  the  garrison  to  Sir  William 
Waller  for  a  supply  of  sack,  tobacco,  dice,  and  cards,  in 

1  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  xviii. 

2  Whitelock,  Memorials,  March  1644. 


90       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

return  for  which  they  offered  beef  and  mutton.  Waller 
was  no  bigot;  and  this  message  was  probably  in  jocular 
reference  to  a  pleasant  passage  between  him  and  Lord 
Crawford  at  Alton  on  I2th  December.1  Lord  Crawford 
had  sent  to  him  at  Farnham  asking  for  a  rivulet  of  sack, 
and  promising  a  fat  ox  in  exchange.  "  Our  worthy  Sir 
William  sent  in  a  loving  compliment  to  the  Lord  Crawford 
half  a  hogshead  of  sack,  who  mistrusting  the  matter  and 
the  messenger,  caused  the  messenger  and  divers  others  to 
taste  thereof,  and  then  caused  it  to  be  carefully  laid  by  for 
his  own  drinking."  Sir  William  demanded  the  promised 
ox,  whereupon  Lord  Crawford  replied  that  he  would  bring 
it  himself.  Waller  "  fails  not  at  nightfall  to  go  in  search  of 
his  ox,  and,  instead  of  a  beast,  brought  away  565  prisoners." 
Crawford  fled  in  haste,  without  his  hat  or  cloak,  and  it  was 
a  standing  joke  that  he  had  "  left  his  sack  at  Alton."  Next 
day  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Waller,  which  was  read  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  i8th  December: 

"To  SIR  W.  WALLER: 
"  SIR, 

"  I  hope  your  gaining  of  Alton  cost  you  dear.  It 
was  your  lot  to  drink  your  own  sack,  which  I  never  in- 
tended to  have  left  for  you.  I  pray  you  favour  me  so  much 
as  to  send  my  owne  chirurgion,  and  upon  my  honour  I 
will  send  you  a  person  suitable  to  his  exchange.  Sir,  your 
servant, 

"  CRAFORD."  l 

But  however  Waller  took  the  ribald  application  of  the 
Arundel  Cavaliers,  it  was  doubtless  a  stumbling-block  and 
offence  to  some  of  his  serious-minded  adherents.  The 
Puritans,  with  all  their  virtues,  to  some  of  which  the  great- 
ness of  England  is  chiefly  due,  were  lacking  in  appreciation 
of  the  lighter  side  of  human  intercourse,  and  were  in- 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  ccccxcviii,  76. 

2  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  xvi. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  91 

tolerant  of  pleasures,  whether  harmless  or  the  reverse.  To 
them  the  rollicking  humour  of  the  pleasure-loving  Cavalier 
was  anathema.  His  very  appearance  betrayed  his  wicked- 
ness, every  species  of  vice  and  iniquity  was  thought  to 
lurk  in  his  long  and  curly  tresses;  while  the  Royalist  for 
his  part  imagined  the  close-cropped  Roundhead  to  be  as 
destitute  of  wit  and  wisdom  as  of  hair. 

Hopton  advanced  rapidly  to  within  a  few  miles  of 
Arundel.  On  Friday  the  29th,  Waller  left  1,500  men  to 
continue  the  siege  and  marched  to  meet  him.  The  armies 
faced  each  other  on  North  Harden  Down  and  at  West 
Dean.  Finding  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  greatly  superior 
force,  Hopton,  after  the  exchange  of  a  few  shots,  retired  in 
the  direction  of  Havant.  A  few  days  later  Colonel  Norton, 
with  his  Hampshire  dragoons,  attacked  a  detachment  of 
the  retreating  Cavalier  army  near  that  place,  and  took 
several  prisoners. 

The  garrison  was  now  very  anxious  to  make  terms  of 
surrender,  but  as  Waller  required  it  to  surrender  "  at 
mercy,"  no  negotiations  took  place.  The  news  of  the 
approaching  fall  of  Arundel  gave  great  satisfaction  in 
London.  On  ist  January  1644,  Parliament  requested  the 
Earl  of  Essex  to  grant  to  Sir  William  Waller  a  commission 
as  major-general  to  command  the  forces  of  the  four  associ- 
ated counties  of  Hants,  Surrey,  Sussex,  and  Kent,  appar- 
ently in  confirmation  of  the  commission  already  given  him 
by  the  House.  This  commission,  which  enabled  Waller  to 
command  independently  in  the  four  counties,  was  at  once 
granted  by  Essex,  not  without  an  energetic  protest,  and 
was  delivered  to  Waller  on  3rd  January.  At  the  same  time 
such  necessaries  as  he  required  were  ordered  to  be 
delivered  to  him — a  sharp  contrast  to  the  niggardly  treat- 
ment accorded  him  when  he  was  making  his  preparations 
at  Farnham. 

Lord  Hopton,  having  failed  in  his  attempt  to  relieve 
Arundel,  endeavoured  to  create  a  diversion  by  laying  siege 


92       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

to  Warblington  Castle,  between  Chichester  and  Portsmouth, 
which  was  held  by  a  small  garrison.  It  appears  that  he 
took  it  "  after  long  siege  and  with  loss  of  more  men  than 
were  there  in  garrison,"  but  with  no  particular  advantage 
to  the  Royalist  cause. 

On  4th  January  Waller  opened  fire  on  Arundel  Castle 
with  some  heavy  guns  which  he  had  procured  from  Ports- 
mouth. The  state  of  the  garrison  was  now  desperate ;  not 
only  were  they  short  of  provisions,  "  they  had  no  bread, 
only  each  soldier  had  2  spoonfuls  of  sodden  wheat  a  day, 
beef  they  had  enough  " ; l  but  discord,  fomented  by  Waller, 
reigned  within  the  walls.  Clarendon  says :  "  By  some  of  the 
soldiers  running  out  to  him,  he  found  means  to  send  in 
again  to  them,  by  which  he  so  increased  their  faction  and 
animosity  against  one  another  that  after  he  had  kept  them 
waking,  with  continual  alarms,  three  or  four  days,  near 
half  the  men  being  sick  and  unable  to  do  duty,  rather  than 
they  would  trust  each  other  longer  they  gave  the  place  and 
themselves  up  as  prisoners  of  war  upon  quarter,  the  place 
being  able  to  have  defended  itself  against  all  that  power 
for  a  much  longer  time." 

Accordingly  on  Friday,  5th  January,  a  message  was 
sent  out  of  the  castle  by  a  drummer,  who,  being  hungry 
and  seeing  abundance  of  food  in  the  besiegers'  lines,  sur- 
rendered on  his  own  account  as  a  prisoner.  A  second 
drummer  was  sent,  with  the  result  that  three  commissioners 
were  appointed  on  either  side  to  arrange  terms  of  surrender. 
While  these  were  being  arranged,  Waller  courteously  per- 
mitted some  ladies  to  leave  the  castle  and  dine  at  his  own 
table.  They  were  Lady  Bishop,  daughter  of  the  Earl  of 
Thanet,  and  wife  of  Sir  Edward  Bishop,  with  her  two 
daughters,  one  of  whom,  Diana,  was  the  young  wife  (only 
fifteen  years  old)  of  Henry  Goring.2  Mrs.  Goring  returned 
to  the  castle  with  the  commissioners,  the  other  ladies  with 
their  maids  were  provided  with  quarters  by  Waller. 

1  Rev.  J.  Coulton  to  Samuel  Jeake.  a  S.  A.  C.,  v,  62. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  93 

The  following  were  the  propositions  made  by  Sir  William 
Waller  to  the  besieged  in  Arundel  Castle: 

First. — I  require  the  castle  of  Arundel  to  be  delivered 
into  my  hands  by  to-morrow  morning,  ten  o'clock. 

Second. — That  all  colonels  of  horse  and  foot,  and  all 
horse,  arms,  ammunition  and  military  provision  whatever 
be  then  delivered  to  me  entire  and  unspoiled. 

Third. — That  all  commanders,  officers,  and  gentlemen 
have  fair  quarter  and  civil  usage. 

Fourth. — That  all  soldiers  shall  have  quarter  for  their 
lives. 

Fifth. — That  for  security  of  performance,  Sir  Edward 
Bishop  and  Sir  Edward  Ford  be  immediately  delivered 
into  my  hands. 

EXPLANATIONS 

One. — By  fair  quarter,  I  mean  giving  life  to  those  that 
yield,  with  imprisonment  of  their  persons;  but  civil 
usage,  which  is  sufficient  security  that  they  shall  not  be 
plundered. 

Two. — Concerning  the  place  they  shall  be  sent  to,  I  will 
not  determine,  but  will  be  left  to  mine  own  freedom,  without 
further  capitulation. 

Three. — The  ministers  are  included  in  the  articles,  and 
are  prisoners,  as  well  as  the  soldiers. 

Four. — When  I  send  away  the  officers,  I  shall  take  care 
that  they  shall  not  want  horses  to  carry  them,  but  will  not 
be  bound  to  let  them  have  their  own  horses. 

At  midnight  Waller  sent  in  an  order  to  the  garrison  that 
Sir  Edward  Ford  and  Sir  Edward  Bishop  must  come  forth 
at  once  if  they  desired  a  further  cessation  of  hostilities. 
They  gave  themselves  up  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  the  fortress  was  formally  surrendered  about  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning  of  Saturday,  6th  January  1644. 

Seventeen  colours  of  foot  and  two  of  horse  were  taken, 


94       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

and  more  than  1,000  prisoners,  including  about  a  hundred 
officers  and  fifty  gentlemen.  A  newswriter  of  the  day  says : 
"  I  never  saw  so  many  weak  and  feeble  creatures  together 
in  my  life,  for  almost  all  the  common  soldiers  were  half 
starved,  and  many  of  them  hardly  able  to  set  one  foot 
before  another."  l  About  200  horses,  2,000  arms,  many  oxen 
both  alive  and  dead,  20  barrels  of  powder,  and  £4,000  in 
money  fell  to  the  victors. 

Waller  immediately  sent  "  2,000  horse  and  foot  and  two 
drakes  to  besiege  my  Lord  Lumley's  house  in  Sussex." 
This  was  Stanstead,  in  the  parish  of  Stoughton;  it  had 
been  sold  after  the  death  of  the  last  Lord  Lumley,  in  1609, 
to  Richard  Lewknor,  of  the  well-known  Cavalier  family.  It 
surrendered  at  once.  A  force  was  also  sent  to  destroy,  or 
more  probably  to  capture,  the  ironworks  in  St.  Leonard's 
Forest,  which,  belonging  either  to  the  Crown  or  to  the 
Royalists,  had  provided  the  royal  ammunition. 

On  8th  January  news  of  the  fall  of  Arundel  reached 
London.  Parliament  immediately  voted  its  thanks  to  Sir 
William  Waller,  "  much  approving  of  all  his  proceedings 
herein ;  and  they  perceiving  by  the  list  that  there  are  many 
gentlemen  of  the  country,  that  are  not  soldiers,  that  are 
men  of  good  estate,  they  do  give  power  to  him  to  ransom 
them  for  sums  of  money,  the  which  they  leave  to  his  dis- 
position upon  account."  Sir  H.  Vane,  junr.,  and  Sir 
Arthur  Haselrig  were  directed  to  prepare  a  letter  for  Sir 
William  Waller,  to  be  signed  by  Mr.  Speaker  Lenthall, 
"  to  congratulate  him  on  his  great  and  good  success,  and  to 
encourage  him  according  to  his  intentions  to  prosecute  the 
advantages  it  has  pleased  God  to  bless  him  with."  The 
town  of  Lewes  sent  Waller  a  present  of  £50  "  in  acknow- 
ledgement of  my  poor  service  at  Arundel,"  as  he  says  in  his 
Vindication.  "  It  is  worth  noting,"  wrote  Mr.  Coulton  to 
Samuel  Jeake,  "  to  see  how  our  Eastern  gentry  come  to 
comfort  our  poor  Colonel,  and  to  show  their  thankfulness 

1  S.  A.  C,  v,  63. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  95 

to  our  noble  Waller."  The  Rye  troop,  to  which  Mr.  Coulton 
was  attached,  had  apparently  particularly  distinguished 
itself;  its  Captain,  Richard  Cockeram,  Mayor  of  Rye,  was 
voted  £100  by  Parliament  in  testimony  of  his  good  services 
to  the  State. 

So  for  the  third  time  within  little  more  than  a  year  the 
castle  of  Arundel  was  captured.  Of  the  800  soldiers  taken 
prisoners,  500  joined  Waller's  army;  the  rest  were  sent  to 
London,  guarded  by  four  troops  of  horse,  "  some  in  carts, 
some  on  foot,"  and  arrived  there  on  2Oth  January.1  Waller 
proceeded  to  repair  the  defences  of  the  castle ; — "  we  have 
fortified  Arundel  as  strong  as  ever  you  saw  a  thing,"  wrote 
Mr.  Coulton ; — and  having  left  it  in  charge  of  Colonel  Morley 
and  Colonel  Springate,  prepared  to  follow  Lord  Hopton, 
who  had  made  a  "nimble  retreat"  to  Winchester.  The 
following  letter  from  Lord  Hopton  to  an  unknown  corre- 
spondent, preserved  in  a  private  collection,  shows  that  he 
was  informed  that  Waller  was  concentrating  the  troops  he 
had  left  at  various  points  on  his  line  of  communications 
before  advancing  into  Hampshire. 

"  Winchester,  Jan.  25,  1644. 

"  The  intelligence  that  came  to  me  of  Sir  William 
Waller's  advancing,  prooves  only  two  regiments  of  horse 
that  was  moved  fro'  neere  Chichester  to  Stansheed,  and  the 
quarters  where  we  were,  I  have  dayly  intelligence  of  him 
and  do  not  find  he  doth  yet  move,  the  foot  that  were  att 
Guildford  and  moved  thence  to  Godliman  I  heare  ar  gonn 
on  towards  Petworth  which  makes  me  think  he  will  joyn  his 
whole  body  in  Sussex  before  he  advances." 2 

Colonel  Stapley  remained  governor  of  Chichester,  and  in 
that  capacity  objected  to  quarter  some  of  Waller's  troopers 
in  the  city;  but  the  Parliament, after  much  correspondence 
on  the  subject,  and  a  reference  to  the  committee  of  both 

1  Journ.  Commons ;  S.  A.  C.,  v,  66. 

2  Morrison  Collection  of  MSS.,  ii,  306. 


96       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

kingdoms,  desired  him  to  yield  obedience  upon  all  occa- 
sions to  Sir  William  Waller  as  commanding-in-chief.1 

So  ended  the  winter  campaign  in  Sussex  of  1643.  It  is 
by  far  the  most  interesting  period  of  the  war  as  far  as  the 
county  is  concerned,  and  its  importance  as  regards  the 
general  result  can  hardly  be  over-estimated.  Civilians  may 
not  always  be  competent  to  grasp  the  military  value  and 
results  of  any  set  of  operations  in  the  field,  but  the  political 
effects  of  a  Royalist  dominance  in  Sussex,  and  the  import- 
ance to  the  Parliament  of  its  overthrow,  may  be  obvious  to 
all.  By  its  final  elimination  the  position  of  London  was 
relieved  of  a  great  element  of  insecurity,  and  the  Parlia- 
ment was  enabled  to  use  to  the  full  the  enormous  advan- 
tage which  its  hold  of  the  capital  afforded.  The  undisputed 
possession  of  the  Sussex  iron-forges  may  also  have  been  an 
asset  of  greater  value  than  is  generally  recognized.  Per- 
haps an  amateur  may  be  permitted  to  suggest  that  Sir 
William  Waller's  stubborn  persistence  in  the  face  of  con- 
stant neglect  and  inadequate  supplies,  and  his  grasp  of  the 
essential  points  in  the  great  game,  have  hardly  received, 
either  in  his  own  day  or  since,  their  due  meed  of  appro- 
bation. 

The  town  of  Arundel  suffered  very  severely  from  these 
repeated  attacks.  It  had  been  grievously  pillaged  by  Lord 
Hopton's  army,  and  many  houses  had  been  destroyed. 
Further  damage  was  done  during  Waller's  siege  of  the 
castle.  In  1645  a  Committee  was  appointed  by  Parliament 
to  meet  at  Billinghurst,  and  inquire  into  and  pay  for 
damage  done  by  the  army.  On  the  petition  of  Nathan 
Older,  Mayor  of  Arundel,  .£3,772  was  allotted  to  certain 
inhabitants  of  the  borough  for  repair  of  damages.2 

1  Journ.    Commons,    January    loth,    i6th,    February    i6th,    2oth, 
March  7th,  1644;  S.  A.  C.,  v,  66.   See  also  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I, 
d,  45,  46,  47 ;  di,  65. 

2  Arundel  Corporation  MSS.,  quoted  by  Dallaway,  p.  210.   See  also 
Tiemey's  Arundel,  p.  714. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  97 

Sir  Edward  Ford,  a  man  "  of  honesty,  courage  and  good 
meaning,"  as  Clarendon  says,  had  been  the  evil  genius  of  the 
Royalist  party  in  Sussex.  His  uncalculating  zeal  had  brought 
on  Chichester  the  calamity  of  a  siege  in  1642,  and  laid  heavy 
burdens  on  the  estates  of  his  friends.  A  year  later  he  had 
induced  Hopton  to  occupy  Arundel,  and  being  left  in  com- 
mand had  neglected  to  furnish  the  castle  with  supplies 
sufficient  to  enable  it  to  hold  out  against  Waller  for  any 
useful  period.  His  connection  with  Ireton  seems  to  have 
insured  him  a  continuance  of  lenient  treatment  when  taken 
prisoner,  for  we  find  him  once  again  in  arms  against  the 
Parliament  in  1645. *  Taking  part  in  the  defence  of  Win- 
chester Castle  in  October  of  that  year,  he  assisted  to  draw 
up  the  terms  of  surrender,  a  task  for  which  experience  had 
qualified  him.  But  so  great  was  the  interest  he  could  com- 
mand that  the  comparatively  small  fine  of  £500  was  all 
that  was  laid  upon  Up  Park.2  For  the  part  they  had  taken 
in  the  defence  of  Arundel,  he  and  Sir  Edward  Bishop  had 
been  declared  by  the  Parliament  on  9th  October  1644  "to 
be  incapable  of  any  employment " — perhaps  a  euphemistic 
way  of  letting  them  off  easily.  His  father,  Sir  William  Ford 
of  Up  Park,  relying  on  the  interest  his  son  could  command, 
was  shrewd  enough  to  throw  the  blame  of  his  own  proceed- 
ings upon  him.  There  was  in  the  old  man  something  of  the 
artfulness  of  the  Simon  Fraser  of  a  later  day.  His  petition, 
dated  24th  October  1645,  is  an  interesting  document. 
"  Your  Petitioner  humbly  begs  that  Parliament  would  not 
punish  him  (the  father)  for  the  son's  fault.  .  .  .  Two  years 
since  he  was  forced  to  go  into  the  King's  quarters,  his  land 
being  sequestered,  his  house  spoiled,  and  his  personal  estate 
taken  from  him.  .  .  .  And  being  at  Winchester  when  Sir 
Ralph  Hopton  marched  into  Sussex  with  his  army,  your 
petitioner  went  along  with  him  to  see  if  he  could  get  any 
rent  of  his  tenants,  but  none  of  them  paid  him  any  money. 

1  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  xxix. 

2  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  932. 

H 


98       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Yet  he  procured  as  many  as  spake  unto  him  protections ; 
and  at  the  return  of  the  army  [Hopton's  retreat  from 
Arundel]  the  soldiers  wanting  bread  were  appointed  to 
fetch  the  same  from  the  countrymen's  houses.  But  they 
fearing  to  be  plundered  of  their  goods  under  colour  of 
fetching  bread,  divers  of  the  country  came  to  your  petitioner 
and  entreated  him  to  be  a  means  that  they  might  send 
some  bread,  and  not  to  have  the  soldiers  to  fetch  it.  And 
according  to  their  desire  he  sent  a  note  to  have  it  done  so 
(for  their  good)  and  he  had  not  any  of  his  tenants  taken 
prisoners,  nor  any  of  their  cattle  taken  away  for  his  rent 
behind,  as  he  might  have  done." 

This  petition  helps  us  to  a  picture  of  the  sufferings  of 
all  classes  in  West  Sussex  in  that  terrible  winter  of  1643: 
"  the  country  far  and  wide  ransacked  for  bread,  rents  un- 
paid, two  sets  of  hungry  soldiery  in  turn  masters,  church 
cottage  mansion  and  park  alike  pillaged,  the  squires  in 
gaol,  the  parson  and  the  farmers  fined." l 

"  Our  country,"  said  a  letter-writer  of  the  time,  "  makes 
as  much  haste  as  it  can  towards  the  miserable  condition  of 
Germany,  contrary  parties  having  been  all  this  winter  in 
many  counties  still  acting  hostilities  against  one  another, 
to  the  undoing  of  the  inhabitants  that  are  forced  to  stand 
to  the  courtesy  of  both." 3 

Sir  Edward  Ford  is  said  to  have  retired  for  some  time  to 
the  Continent,  but  in  1647  ^e  Queen,  knowing  his  rela- 
tionship to  Ireton,  sent  him  over  "  to  discover  the  intentions 
of  the  army,  and  promote  an  agreement  between  his  Majesty 
and  them."  Sir  John  Berkeley  followed,  and  met  him  at 
Reading,  with  the  same  hopeless  intrigue  in  view.3  On  the 
flight  of  the  King  from  Hampton  Court  Ford  was  sus- 

1  Rev.  H.  D.  Gordon,  History  of  Harting,  1877,  p.  84. 

-  CaL  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  ccccxcviii,  85.  Mr.  Harrison  to 
John  Bradley  at  the  College  of  Tournay,  Paris,  28th  December 
1643. 

:  Sir  J.  Berkeley's  Memoirs,  1699. 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ARUNDEL  99 

pected  of  being  privy  to  it,  and  was  ordered  by  the  Parlia- 
ment to  be  arrested.1 

When  the  war  was  over  Ford  acquired  interest  and 
favour  with  Cromwell  and  the  Parliament.  He  was  a  clever 
engineer  and  projector;  but  some  of  his  later  schemes  have 
an  anticipatory  flavour  of  the  South  Sea  Bubble.  In  1656 
"  being  encouraged  by  Oliver,  and  invited  by  the  Citizens 
of  London,  he  raised  the  Thames  water  into  all  the  highest 
streets  of  the  city,  93  feet  high,  in  four  eight-inch  pipes,  to 
the  Wonder  of  all  men,  and  the  Honour  of  the  Nation, 
with  a  rare  Engine  of  his  own  Invention,  done  at  his  own 
charge  and  in  one  year's  time.  He  also  built  the  Great 
Water  Engine  near  Somerset  House,  which  supplieth  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Strand,  and  adjacent  parts  with  water."2 

His  projects  took  a  wide  range.  On  22nd  September 
1663  Samuel  Pepys  records  in  his  Diary:  "This  day  my 
wife  showed  me  bills  printed  wherein  her  father,  with  Sir 
John  Collidon  and  Sir  Edward  Ford,  have  got  a  patent  for 
curing  of  smoky  chimneys." 3 

After  the  great  fire  of  London  he  published  "  Experi- 
mental Physics  how  the  King  may  have  money  to  pay  and 
maintain  his  Fleets,  with  ease  to  his  people:  London  may 
be  rebuilt  and  all  proprietors  satisfied :  money  to  be  at  six 
per  cent,  on  pawns,  and  the  Fishing  Trade  set  up,  which 
alone  is  able,  and  sure  to  enrich  us  all.  And  all  this  with- 
out altering,  straining  or  thwarting  any  of  our  Laws,  or 
Customs,  now  in  use." 4 

A  year  or  two  later  he  invented  a  mode  of  coining 
farthings.  Each  piece  was  to  differ  minutely  from  another 
to  prevent  forgery.  He  failed  to  procure  a  patent  for  this 
scheme  in  England,  but  obtained  one  for  Ireland.  He  died 
in  Ireland  on  3rd  September  1670,  before  he  could  carry 
his  design  into  execution.5  In  some  of  the  projects  of  his 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  63.  "  Wood,  Athenae  Oxonienses,  i,  469. 

3  Pepys'  Diary,  ed.  H.  B.  Wheatley,  iii,  286. 

4  Reprinted  Harleian  Miscellany,  iv,  195.  5  D.  N.  B. 


ioo     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

later  days  we  seem  to  see  a  hint  of  the  reckless  daring 
which  led  him  in  earlier  life,  as  High  Sheriff  of  Sussex, 
to  undertake  the  defence  of  Chichester  and  Arundel  with 
insufficient  means  against  overwhelming  odds. 

His  only  daughter,  Catharine,  married  Ralph,  Lord  Grey 
of  Werke,  maternal  ancestor  of  the  second  and  third  Lords 
Braybrooke. 


CHAPTER  VII 

CHILLINGWORTH,  CHEYNELL,  AND  SPRINGATE 

THE  clause  in  Waller's  terms  of  surrender  for  the  gar- 
rison of  Arundel  which  provided  that  ministers  were 
included  in  the  articles,  and  to  be  prisoners  as  well  as  the 
combatants,  was  probably  meant  to  cover  the  celebrated 
Church  of  England  divine,  Dr.  Chillingworth,  who  was  not 
only  an  inmate  of  the  castle,  but  had  taken  a  prominent 
part  in  its  defence.  Being  in  bad  health  he  had  perhaps 
selected  it  as  a  place  of  residence,  with  no  warlike  intent, 
but  as  offering  comfortable  winter  quarters,  protected  by 
the  supposed  inaccessibility  of  Sussex  from  any  possible 
stress  of  war.  Although  only  in  his  forty-second  year, 
Chillingworth  had  passed  a  life  of  considerable  variety. 
Son  of  a  mercer  at  Oxford,  and  godson  of  Archbishop 
Laud,  he  was  a  fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Oxford,  and 
disputed  against"  John  Fisher"  [Percy]  the  Jesuit;  in  1630 
he  embraced  Romanism  and  went  to  Douai,  returning  to 
Oxford  the  following  year,  and  reverting  to  Protestantism 
in  1634.  In  1638  he  published  his  best-known  book  The 
Religion  of  Protestants  a  Safe  Way  of  Salvation,  and  in 
the  same  year  was  appointed  Prebendary  and  Chancellor 
of  Salisbury.  When  war  broke  out  he  attached  himself  to 
the  King's  army,  and  was  present  at  the  siege  of  Glou- 
cester. "  He  invented,"  says  Dr.  Calamy,1  "  engines  after 
the  manner  of  the  Roman  '  testudines  cum  pluteis,'  which 
ran  upon  cart  wheels,  with  a  blind  or  planks  musket  proof, 

1  Dallaway,  i,  173. 
101 


and  holes  for  four  musketeers  to  play  out  of,  placed  upon 
the  axletree,  and  carrying  a  bridge  before  it.  The  wheels 
were  to  fall  into  the  ditch  and  the  bridge  to  rest  upon  the 
town's  breastwork,  so  making  several  complete  bridges  to 
enter  the  city."  At  Arundel  Castle  he  had  under  his  charge 
two  small  guns,  called  "  murderers,"  the  only  guns  mounted 
on  the  works.  "  Some  say  that  he  was  actively  engaged 
during  the  siege  in  constructing  machines  after  the  Roman 
method,  and  that  the  vexation  arising  from  their  failure 
greatly  hastened  his  death.  He  was  a  good  logician  and 
used  his  logic  to  some  purpose  in  theology ;  but  he  left  out 
an  important  consideration  in  his  military  elenchus  when 
he  forgot  that  the  Romans  did  not  employ  '  villainous  salt- 
petre '  in  their  sieges." 

Chillingworth  was  one  of  those  "sons  of  the  Renais- 
sance "  to  whom  neither  party  offered  a  sure  abiding-place. 
His  contention  that  the  test  of  reason  should  be  applied  to 
revealed  religion,  and  his  hatred  of  dogmatism  drove  him  to 
the  King's  side,  and  brought  on  him  the  unquenchable 
wrath  of  the  Puritan  divines,  who  accused  him  of  Socinian- 
ism,  and  a  denial  of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  "  Learne,"  said 
Cheynell,  "  the  first  lesson  of  Christianity,  Self-deniall ; 
deny  your  owne  will,  and  submit  yourselves  to  God's;  deny 
your  reason,  and  submit  to  faith :  Reason  tells  you  there 
are  some  things  above  reason  and  you  cannot  be  so  un- 
reasonable as  to  make  reason  judge  of  those  things  which 
are  above  reason:  Remember  that  Master  Chillingworth 
did  runne  mad  with  reason,  and  so  lost  his  reason  and 
religion  both  at  once :  he  thought  he  might  trust  his  reason 
to  the  highest  points;  his  reason  was  to  be  Judge,  whether 
or  no  there  be  a  God?  Whether  that  God  wrote  any  Booke? 
Whether  the  bookes  usually  received  as  Canonicall  be  the 
bookes,  the  Scriptures  of  God?  What  is  the  sense  of  those 
books?  What  Religion  is  best?  What  Church  purest?" 
The  day  of  liberty  of  conscience  was  not  yet:  if  either 
faction  used  the  phrase,  it  meant  the  triumph  of  its  own 


CHILLINGWORTH,  CHEYNELL,  SPRINGATE    103 

principles.  At  Oxford  Chillingworth  was  as  much  out  of 
place  as  at  Westminster.  He  learned  there  that  there  were 
other  sins  as  great  as  those  of  violence.1  "  Seeing,"  he 
declared  in  a  sermon  preached  before  the  Court,  "  publicans 
and  sinners  on  the  one  side,  against  scribes  and  pharisees 
on  the  other;  on  the  one  side  hypocrisy,  on  the  other  pro- 
faneness;  no  honesty  nor  justice  on  the  one  side,  and  very 
little  piety  on  the  other;  on  the  one  side  horrible  oaths, 
curses  and  blasphemies,  on  the  other  pestilent  lies,  calumnies 
and  perjury;  ...  I  profess  that  I  cannot  without  trembling 
consider  what  is  likely  to  be  the  event  of  these  distractions." 
"  How  few,"  he  said  in  another  place,  "  of  our  ladies  and 
gentlewomen  do  or  will  understand  that  a  voluptuous  life 
is  damnable  and  prohibited  unto  them!"  The  men,  too, 
came  in  for  their  share  of  blame:  "  They  that  maintain  the 
King's  righteous  cause  with  the  hazard  of  their  lives  and 
fortunes,  but  by  their  oaths  and  curses,  by  their  drunk- 
enness and  debauchery,  by  their  irreligion  and  profane- 
ness,  fight  more  powerfully  against  their  party  than  by  all 
other  means  they  do  or  can  fight  for  it,  are  not,  I  fear, 
very  well  acquainted  with  any  part  of  the  Bible."  The 
London  newspapers  had  hardly  worse  charges  to  bring 
than  this ;  and  after  such  a  sermon  the  Court  at  Oxford 
was  no  place  for  Chillingworth.  He  took  refuge  with 
Hopton,  the  stout  soldier,  the  lover  of  peace,  the  enemy  of 
all  license  and  irregularity  of  life.2 

It  happened,  apparently  by  chance,  that  when  Arundel 
fell,  Dr.  Chillingworth's  arch-enemy,  Dr.  Cheynell,  was  pre- 
sent with  Waller's  army.  He,  too,  was  a  native  of  Oxford, 
the  son  of  a  physician ;  he  was  a  fellow  of  Merton  College, 
and  in  1637  was  appointed  to  the  living  of  Marston  St. 
Lawrence,  Northamptonshire.  Being  notorious  for  his 
Calvinistic  opinions  he  was  plundered  and  driven  out  by 
the  King's  troops  in  1642;  became  a  chaplain  in  the 

1  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  xiv.  2  Ibid. 


104     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Parliamentary  army,  and  a  member  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly  in  1643;  from  1643  to  1660  he  was  the  "in- 
truded" rector  of  Petworth.  In  1643  he  published  The 
Rise,  Growth,  and  Danger  of  Socinianisme,  in  which  he 
particularly  attacked  Chillingworth  and  endeavoured  to 
prove  that  "the  Religion  which  hath  been  so  violently 
contended  for  (by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  his 
adherents)  is  not  the  true  pure  Protestant  Religion,  but  an 
Hotchpotch  of  Arminianisme,  Socinianisme  and  Popery." 

Cheynell  wrote  a  very  remarkable  book,  in  which  he  re- 
counted at  length  the  somewhat  extraordinary  proceedings 
which  followed;  partly,  it  seems,  in  order  to  refute  the 
accusation  that  Chillingworth  was  not  well  treated  by  his 
captors,  and  partly  in  exultation  over  his  own  outrageous 
proceedings  at  Chillingworth's  funeral.1  He  states  that  he 
came  into  Sussex  to  exercise  his  ministry  among  his 
friends,  in  a  place  where  there  had  been  little  of  the  power 
of  religion  either  known  or  practised.  About  the  end  of 
November  he  travelled  from  London  to  Chichester,  accord- 
ing to  his  usual  custom,  to  observe  the  monthly  fast.  He 
was  guarded  by  a  convoy  of  sixteen  soldiers  who  faced 
about  two  hundred  of  the  enemy,  and  put  them  to  flight. 
He  arrived  at  Arundel  on  the  2ist  of  December,  and  re- 
mained there  until  the  castle  was  surrendered  on  6th  January. 
Finding  that  Chillingworth  was  sick,  he  represented  his 
condition  to  Sir  William  Waller,  who  commended  him  to 
the  care  of  his  chaplain,  who  laid  him  on  his  own  bed  and 
supplied  him  with  all  necessaries  which  the  place  afforded. 

1  Chillingworth i  Novissima,  or,  The  Sicknesse,  Heresy,  Death  and 
Buriall  of  William  Chillingworth  (In  his  own  phrase)  Clerk  of  Oxford, 
and  in  the  Conceit  of  his  fellow  Souldiers,  the  Queens  Arch-Engineer, 
and  Grand-Intelligencer.  Set  forth  in  a  A  Letter  to  his  Eminent  and 
learned  Friends,  a  Relation  of  his  Apprehension  at  Arundell,  a  Dis- 
covery of  his  Errours  in  a  Briefe  Catechism,  and  a  short  Oration  at 
the  Buriall  of  his  Hereticall  Book.  By  Francis  Cheynell,  late  Fellow 
of  Merton  Colledge.  Published  by  Authority.  London.  Printed  for 
Samuel  Gellibrand,  at  the  Brazen  Serpent  in  Pauls  Church-yard,  1644. 


CHILLINGWORTH,  CHEYNELL,  SPRINGATE    105 

When  the  other  prisoners  were  sent  to  London,  it  was 
evident  that  Chillingworth  was  not  fit  to  take  the  journey, 
and  at  Cheynell's  request  he  was  sent  to  Chichester.  The 
governor  gave  orders  that  he  should  not  be  handed  over  to 
the  Marshall,  but  delivered  to  the  charge  of  a  Lieutenant 
Golledge.  He  was  housed  in  the  Bishop's  palace,  where  he 
had  very  courteous  usage,  and  every  accommodation  requisite 
for  a  sick  man.  Free  passage  was  offered  to  any  of  his 
friends  who  might  wish  to  visit  him. 

But  poor  Chillingworth  was  dying,  and  perhaps  his  end 
was  hastened  by  the  importunities  of  his  enemy,  moved,  as 
he  asserted,  not  only  by  pity  for  his  bodily  condition,  but 
by  concern  for  the  welfare  of  his  soul.  Cheynell  attributes 
his  death  to  his  great  depression.  "  I  entreated  him  to 
pluck  up  his  spirits  and  not  to  yield  to  his  disease;  but  I 
perceived  that  though  reason  be  stout  when  it  encounters 
with  faith,  yet  reason  is  not  so  stout  when  it  is  to  encounter 
with  affliction;  and  I  cannot  but  observe  that  many  a 
Parliament-soldier  hath  been  more  cheerful  in  a  prison, 
than  this  discoursing  engineer  and  learned  captive  was  in 
a  palace."  As  one  reason  for  this  depression,  Cheynell 
alleges  that  Chillingworth  was  disliked  and  abused  by  most 
of  the  officers  in  Arundel ;  they  looked  upon  him  as  an  in- 
truder into  their  councils  of  war,  and  (one  of  them  whis- 
pered) as  the  "  Queen's  intelligencer,"  who  was  set  as  a  spy 
over  them  and  their  proceedings.  An  officer  had  said  that 
they  were  bound  to  curse  that  little  priest  to  the  pit  of  hell, 
for  he  had  been  the  ruin  of  them  all ;  that  he  had  so  much 
credit  at  Court,  and  the  Court-Council  so  much  influence 
over  their  military  Council,  that  they  were  over-awed  and 
durst  not  contradict  Mr.  Chillingworth,  for  fear  their  own 
resolutions  might  succeed  ill,  and  then  his  counsel  be 
esteemed  the  better;  that  Mr.  Chillingworth  was  so  con- 
fident of  his  great  wit  and  parts,  that  he  conceived  himself 
able  to  manage  martial  affairs,  in  which  he  had  no  experi- 
ence, by  the  strength  of  his  own  wit  and  reason.  There 


io6     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

was  evidently  some  inclination  to  make  him  a  scape- 
goat. 

The  poor  man  was  not  allowed  to  die  in  peace.  "In 
compassion  to  his  soul "  Cheynell  dealt  "  freely  and  plainly  " 
with  him,  and  told  him  that  he  had  been  very  active  in 
fomenting  those  bloody  wars  against  the  Parliament  and 
Commonwealth  of  England,  his  natural  country,  and  by 
consequent  against  the  very  light  of  nature.  Chillingworth 
acknowledged  that  he  had  been  active  in  the  war,  but  that 
he  had  ever  followed  the  dictates  of  his  conscience ;  and 
that  if  Cheynell  would  convince  him  that  he  was  in  error, 
he  would  not  find  him  obstinate.  This  was  the  occasion 
for  a  series  of  discussions,  in  which  the  aggressive  Puritan 
seems  to  have  browbeaten  the  dying  man  unmercifully. 
Cheynell  put  to  him  that  the  difference  was  not  between 
the  King  and  the  Parliament,  but  between  the  Parliament 
and  the  delinquents ;  and  indeed  between  the  Queen  and 
the  Parliament:  that  the  King's  visit  to  the  House  on 
4th  January  1642  was  upon  the  Queen's  errand,  and  that 
the  Queen  was  discontented  because  her  bloody  design 
was  not  put  in  execution.  Chillingworth  replied  that  he 
could  not  deny  it,  and  would  not  excuse  it.  Much  political 
discussion  of  a  somewhat  futile  character  followed. 

"  My  heart,"  says  Cheynell, "  was  moved  with  compassion 
towards  him,  and  I  gave  him  many  visits  after  this  first 
visit;  but  I  seldom  found  him  in  fit  case  to  discourse,  be- 
cause his  disease  grew  stronger  and  stronger,  and  he  weaker 
and  weaker.  When  I  found  him  pretty  hearty  one  day,  I 
desired  him  to  tell  me,  whether  he  conceived  that  a  man 
living  and  dying  a  Turk,  Papist,  or  Socinian  could  be 
saved.  All  the  answer  I  could  gain  from  him  was,  that  he 
did  not  absolve  them,  and  would  not  condemn  them.  I  was 
much  displeased  with  the  answer  upon  divers  reasons." 

Chillingworth  being  much  troubled  with  a  sore  throat, 
which  was  "like  to  choak  him,"  Cheynell  rode  over  to 
Arundel  to  fetch  a  doctor  who  had  previously  visited  him, 


CHILLINGWORTH,  CHEYNELL,  SPRINGATE    107 

but  found  that  he  had  been  called  out  of  the  town  to  attend 
to  Sir  William  Springate.  During  Cheynell's  absence  a 
religious  officer  of  Chichester  garrison  followed  his  suit  to 
Mr.  Chillingworth,  and  entreated  him  to  declare  himself  in 
point  of  religion.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  last  straw, 
and  death  came  to  relieve  the  poor  man  from  his  tormentors. 
It  is  excusable  to  recall  Sydney  Smith's  conception  of  the 
most  horrible  of  ends,  to  be  preached  to  death  by  wild 
curates. 

Controversy  pursued  him  to  the  grave.  Some  of  his 
enemies  wished  to  deny  him  Christian  burial.  His  friends 
urged  that  being  Chancellor  of  a  Cathedral,  he  should  be 
buried  in  the  Cathedral  and  in  the  chancel.  A  third  and 
middle  course  prevailed — "to  bury  him  in  the  cloisters, 
among  the  old  Shavelings,  Monks  and  Priests,  of  whom  he 
had  so  good  an  opinion  all  his  life."  "  There  were,"  says 
Cheynell,  "  all  things  which  may  any  way  appertain  to  the 
civility  of  a  funeral,  though  there  was  nothing  which  belongs 
to  the  superstition  of  a  funeral.  His  body  was  laid  in  a 
convenient  coffin,  covered  with  a  mourning-hearse  cloth, 
more  seemly  (as  I  conceive)  than  the  usual  covering,  patched 
up  out  of  the  mouldy  relics  of  some  moth-eaten  copes.  His 
friends  were  entertained  (according  to  their  own  desire) 
with  wine  and  cakes ;  though  that  is,  in  my  conceit,  a  turning 
of  the  house  of  mourning  into  a  house  of  banqueting.  All 
that  offered  themselves  to  carry  his  corpse  out  of  pure 
devotion,  because  they  were  men  of  his  persuasion,  had 
every  one  of  them  (according  to  the  custom  of  the  countrey) 
a  branch  of  rosemary,  a  mourning  ribband,  and  a  pair  of 
gloves." 

At  the  grave  was  enacted  the  most  surprising  scene  in 
all  this  strange  story.  Cheynell  appeared  carrying  in  his 
hand  a  copy  of  The  Religion  of  Protestants.  The  author, 
he  said, "  hath  left  that  fantasy  which  he  called  his  religion 
upon  record  in  his  subtle  book.  He  was  not  ashamed  to 
print  and  publish  this  destructive  tenet,  '  that  there  is  no 


io8     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

necessity  of  Church  or  Scripture  to  make  men  faithful 
men.'  ...  I  shall  undertake  to  bury  his  errors  which  are 
published  in  this  so  much  admired  but  unworthy  book ;  and 
happy  would  it  be  for  this  kingdom  if  this  book  and  all  its 
fellows  could  be  so  buried  that  they  might  never  rise  more, 
unless  it  were  to  a  confutation ;  and  happy  would  it  have 
been  for  the  author  if  he  had  repented  of  those  errors,  that 
they  might  never  rise  for  his  condemnation ;  happy,  thrice 
happy  will  he  be  if  his  works  do  not  follow  him,  if  they 
never  rise  with  him  nor  against  him." 

Then  suiting  the  action  to  the  word,  Cheynell  flung  the 
hated  volume  into  the  grave.  "  Get  thee  gone  then,"  he 
said,  "  thou  cursed  booke,  which  has  seduced  so  many 
precious  souls;  get  thee  gone,  thou  corrupt  rotten  booke, 
earth  to  earth,  and  dust  to  dust;  get  thee  gone  into  the 
place  of  rottennesse,  that  thou  mayest  rot  with  thy  author, 
and  see  corruption."  Whereupon  he  went  from  the  grave 
to  the  pulpit,  and  preached  on  the  text,  "  Let  the  dead 
bury  their  dead,  but  go  thou  and  preach  the  Kingdom  of 
God." 

He  closes  his  account  of  the  funeral  in  a  passage  of 
biting  eloquence:  "  I  dare  boldly  say,  that  I  have  been  more 
sorrowfull  for  Mr.  Chillingworth,  and  mercifull  to  him  than 
his  friends  at  Oxford :  his  sicknesse  and  obstinacy  cost  me 
many  a  prayer,  and  many  a  teare.  I  did  heartily  bewaile 
the  loss  of  such  strong  parts,  and  eminent  gifts ;  the  losse 
of  so  much  learning  and  diligence.  Never  did  I  observe 
more  acutenesse  and  eloquence  so  exactly  tempered  in  the 
same  person:  Diabolus  ab  illo  ornari  cupiebat\  for  he  had 
eloquence  enough  to  set  a  faire  varnish  upon  the  foulest 
designe.  Howie  ye  firre  trees,  for  a  cedar  is  fallen;  lament 
ye  sophisters  for  the  master  of  sentences  (shall  I  say)  or 
fallacies  is  vanished:  wring  your  hands,  and  beat  your 
breasts,  ye  Antichristian  Engineers,  for  your  Arch-Engineer 
is  dead,  and  all  his  Engines  buried  with  him.  Ye  daughters 
of  Oxford  weep  over  Chillingworth,  for  he  had  a  consider- 


CHILLINGWORTH,  CHEYNELL,  SPRINGATE    109 

able  and  hopefull  project  how  to  clothe  you  and  himselfe 
in  scarlet,  and  other  delights.  O  how  are  the  mighty  fallen, 
and  the  weapons,  nay  Engines,  of  warre  perished!" 

Mr.  Gardiner  is  very  lenient  to  Cheynell  in  respect  of  a 
scene  which  has  usually  excited  the  indignation  of  modern 
writers.1  He  urges  in  extenuation  that  Cheynell  pro- 
nounced no  positive  sentence  of  damnation  upon  the 
heretic.  Cheynell,  he  suggests,  was  not  contending  for  the 
mere  chips  of  orthodoxy:  he  saw,  and  saw  rightly,  that 
the  contention  between  himself  and  Chillingworth  involved 
deeper  issues  than  those  of  the  Civil  War.  Behind  the  death- 
bed of  the  divine  who  had  lodged  an  appeal  to  human 
reason,  he  descried,  dimly  in  the  distant  future,  the  shadowy 
forms  of  Voltaire  and  the  commune  of  Paris. 

To  the  present  writer  it  appears  from  a  careful  perusal 
of  Chillingworthi  Novissima  that  Cheynell  was  seriously 
concerned  neither  for  the  bodily  comfort,  nor  for  the  eternal 
salvation,  of  his  opponent;  rather  that  he  was  filled  with 
the  hateful  arrogance  of  the  bigot,  with  the  conceit  that  the 
secrets  of  Divine  truth  were  open  only  to  himself  and  his 
fellows;  and  that  the  aim  of  his  alternate  coaxing  and 
bullying  was  to  win  the  triumph  of  a  recantation  even  from 
the  last  dying  gasp  of  his  victim.  That  he  failed  to  win  it 
accounts  for  the  bitterness  he  exhibited  in  the  unseemly 
scene  at  the  grave-side,  and  for  the  no  less  objectionable 
tone  of  his  unpleasant  book. 

Time  has  brought  its  revenge.  Not  only  have  the  writ- 
ings of  Chillingworth  survived  until  our  own  day,  but  the 
principles  for  which  he  stood  are  dominant  in  the  modern 
world.  If  Cheynell  is  remembered  at  all,  it  is  for  the  viru- 
lence with  which  he  opposed  them. 

Chillingworth  sleeps  in  his  cathedral  cloister;  Cheynell 
in  the  little  old  church  of  Preston,  near  Brighton,  to  which 
parish  he  retired  at  the  Restoration.  A  simple  slab  on  the 

1  Civil  War,  ch.  xiv. 


no     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

floor  of  the  nave  is  the  monument  of  the  fiery  divine  who 
through  those  stormy  years  ruled  the  diocese  with  a 
stronger  hand  than  any  bishop's.  Like  many  another,  he 
lived  long  enough  to  see  the  setting  up  again  of  all  that  he 
had  made  it  his  life's  work  to  destroy. 

Poor  Dr.  Chillingworth  was  not  the  only  victim  of  the 
unhealthy  condition  of  Arundel  Castle.  It  seems  indeed 
that  the  conquerors  suffered  quite  as  severely  as  had  the 
garrison.  Many  died  of  a  fever,  probably  typhus,  the  most 
notable  being  Sir  William  Springate,  or  Springet,  of 
Ringmer,  nephew  of  Sir  Thomas  Springate  of  Broyle 
Place,  who  had  been  appointed  joint-governor  with  Colonel 
Morley.  His  widow  has  left  some  exceedingly  interesting 
letters  written  in  1680,  for  the  information  of  her  grandson 
as  to  his  Springet  ancestry.1  This  lady  was  Mary,  daughter 
of  Sir  John  Preva,  Knt.,2  who  brought  her  husband  a  dower 
of  £1,600.  After  his  death  she  married  Isaac  Penington, 
son  of  Sir  Isaac  Penington,  Lord  Mayor  of  London  in  the 
first  year  of  the  war — a  vigorous  and  determined  Puritan 
who  secured  the  organization  of  the  City  for  the  interests  of 
the  Parliament.  The  son  went  further,  and  to  the  indigna- 
tion of  his  father,  joined  the  Quakers  in  1657,  and  was 
imprisoned  in  1660  for  refusing  the  oath  of  allegiance.  His 
wife  followed  her  husband's  religious  course  with  enthusiasm, 
and  although  she  writes  with  full  appreciation  of  her  first 
husband's  strict  Puritanism,  she  quietly  laments  his  not 
having  embraced  the  whole  truth,  as  she  conceived  that 
she  knew  it  later.  Her  daughter  Gulielma  married  the 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  67.    These  letters  were  printed   in   1821,  and  later 
appeared   in  the   Gentleman's   Magazine  for  1851,  edited  by   Hep- 
worth  Dixon,  who  was  apparently  not  aware  of  their  previous  publi- 
cation. 

2  Sir  John  Preva,  Knt.,  Colonel  in  the  service  of  the  United  Provinces 
under  the  Prince  of  Orange,  married  Anne  Fagg,  one  of  the  co-heirs 
of  Edward  Fagg,  of  Ewell,  near  Feversham  in  the  County  of  Kent,  Esq. 
See  inscription   on   monument  to   Sir  William   Springett,   Knt.,   in 
Ringmer  Church. 


CHILLINGWORTH,  CHEYNELL,  SPRINGATE    1 1 1 

celebrated  William  Penn,  founder  of  Pennsylvania,  and  to 
their  eldest  son  Springet  Penn  the  letters  above  mentioned 
were  addressed  by  his  grandmother.  They  present  an  un- 
rivalled picture  of  an  aspect  of  the  times  not  very  commonly 
appreciated — the  life  of  a  country  gentleman  of  good  degree, 
a  soldier  and  sportsman,  "  an  artist  in  shooting  and  fishing 
and  making  of  lines  and  ordering  of  baits  and  things  for 
that  purpose  " — who  was  yet  a  Puritan  of  the  strictest  in 
up-bringing  and  practice,  and  spent  his  whole  fortune  for 
the  service  of  the  Parliament.  Incidentally  we  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  trouble  of  the  times,  the  almost  insuperable  difficulties 
of  travel,  the  desolation  at  Arundel  after  the  siege.  From 
such  a  source  a  somewhat  lengthy  quotation  does  not  seem 
out  of  place. 

"  A  Letter  from  me  [M.  P.]  to  my  dear  grandchild  Springet 
Penn,  written  about  the  year  1680,  and  left  to  be 
delivered  to  him  at  my  decease. 

"  DEAR  CHILD, — Thou  bearing  the  name  of  thy  worthy 
grandfather  Springet,  I  felt  one  day  the  thing  I  desired 
was  answered,  which  was  the  keeping  up  his  name  and 
memory,  not  in  the  vain  way  of  the  world,  who  preserve 
their  name  for  the  glory  of  a  family,  but  in  regard  that  he 
left  no  son  his  name  might  not  be  forgotten.  .  .  . 

"  Well,  dear  child,  I  will  give  thee  some  account  of  him. 
Thy  dear  mother's  father  was  of  religious  parents;  his 
father,  thy  great-grandfather  (though  a  lawyer)  was  re- 
ligious and  strict,  in  those  things  wherein  the  administra- 
tion of  that  time  consisted,  zealous  against  popery,  scrupled 
putting  his  money  to  use,  and  was  of  a  sober  conversation, 
and  in  the  exercise  of  what  (in  the  dim  light  of  that  day) 
was  accounted  holy  duties.  He  died  of  a  consumption, 
leaving  thy  great-grandmother  with  two  sons  and  with 
child  of  a  daughter.  She  was  married  to  him  about  three 
years,  and  left  a  widow  about  twenty-two  or  twenty-three. 


H2     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

She  was  an  excellent  woman  and  had  a  great  regard  to  the 
well-being  of  her  children,  both  in  the  inward  and  outward 
condition,  and  that  she  might  the  better  bring  up  her 
children  lived  a  retired  life,  refused  marriage  (though  fre- 
quently well  offered,  as  I  have  heard  her  say).  She  suffered 
pretty  hard  things  from  his  two  brothers,  Sir  Thomas 
Springet  and  a  brother-in-law,  who  were  his  executors, 
through  their  jealousy  that  she  being  so  very  young  a 
widow  would  marry.  They  refused  her  the  education  of 
her  children,  and  put  her  upon  suing  for  it,  which  she 
obtained  with  charge,  and  some  years'  suit.  .  .  .  She  spent 
her  time  very  ingeniously,  and  in  a  bountiful  manner  be- 
stowed great  part  of  her  jointure  yearly  upon  the  poor,  and 
in  physic  and  chirurgery.  She  had  about  twelve  score 
pounds  a-year  jointure,  and  with  it  she  kept  a  brace  of 
geldings,  a  man  and  a  maid  servant.  (She  boarded  at  her 
only  brother's,  Sir  Edward  Partridge's.)  She  kept  several 
poor  women  constantly  employed  in  simpling  for  her  in 
summer  and  in  winter,  procuring  such  things  as  she  had 
use  of  in  physic  and  chirurgery,  and  for  eyes,  having 
eminent  judgment  in  all  these,  and  admirable  success, 
which  made  her  famous  and  sought  to  out  of  several 
countries  by  the  greatest  persons  and  by  the  low  ones. 
She  was  daily  employing  her  servants  in  making  oils, 
salves,  balsams,  drawing  spirits,  distilling  of  waters,  mak- 
ing syrups,  conserves  of  many  kinds,  purges,  pills  and 
lozenges.  .  .  . 

"  She  kept  an  Independent  minister  in  her  house,  and 
gave  liberty  to  people  to  come  twice  a  week  to  her  house 
to  hear  him  preach.  She  was  a  most  tender  and  affection- 
ate mother  to  thy  grandfather,  and  always  shewed  great 
kindness  to  me ;  indeed  she  was  very  honourable  in  coun- 
selling her  son  not  to  marry  for  an  estate,  and  put  by 
many  great  offers  of  persons  with  thousands,  urging  him  to 
consider  what  would  make  him  happy  in  a  choice.  She 
propounded  my  marriage  to  him  because  we  were  bred 


CHILLINGWORTH,CHEYNELL,SPRINGATE    113 

together  of  children,  I  nine  years  old  and  he  twelve,  when 
we  first  came  to  live  together.  .  .  . 

"  Now  to  come  to  thy  grandfather ;  she  having,  as  I 
said,  educated  him  and  the  rest  of  her  children  in  the  fear 
of  the  Lord,  according  to  the  knowledge  given  in  that  day, 
and  took  great  care  in  placing  him  both  at  school  and 
university,  she  sent  him  to  Cambridge  (as  being  accounted 
more  sober  than  Oxford)  and  placed  him  in  a  Puritan 
college  called  Katherine's  Hall,  where  was  a  very  sober 
tender  master  of  the  house,  and  a  grave  sober  tutor;  as 
also  she  appointed  one  Ellis,  who  was  accounted  a  Puritan, 
she  having  brought  him  up  in  his  youth,  and  got  the  pre- 
ferment of  a  Fellow  in  that  college.  Thy  grandfather 
coming  from  Cambridge  young,  was  placed  at  the  Inns  of 
Court,  but  he  being  religiously  inclined,  stayed  not  long 
there,  but  came  into  Kent,  where  his  mother  was,  and  he 
heard  one  Wilson,  who  had  been  suspended  for  not  con- 
forming to  the  bishops  (for  about  three  years) ;  he  was  an 
extraordinary  man  in  his  day.  Thy  grandfather  declined 
bishops  and  common  prayer  very  early.  When  he  was 
between  twenty  and  twenty-one  we  married,  and  without 
a  ring,  and  many  of  their  formal  dark  words  left  out  (upon 
his  ordering  it)  he  being  so  zealous  against  common  prayer 
and  such  like  things.  .  .  .  When  he  had  a  child  he  refused 
the  midwife  to  say  her  formal  prayer,  and  prayed  himself, 
and  gave  thanks  to  the  Lord  in  a  very  sweet  melted  way, 
which  caused  great  amazement.  He  never  went  to  the 
parish  church,  but  went  many  miles  to  this  aforementioned 
Wilson.  Nor  would  he  go  to  prayers  in  the  house,  but 
prayed  morning  and  evening  with  me  and  his  servants  in 
our  chambers,  which  wrought  great  discontent  in  the 
family  (we  boarded  with  his  uncle  Sir  Edward  Part- 
ridge). .  .  . 

"  In  his  zeal  against  dark  formality  and  the  superstitions 
of  the  times,  he  having  taken  the  Scotch  Covenant  against 
all  popery  and  popish  innovations,  as  also  the  English 

I 


H4     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Engagement,  when  his  child  was  about  a  month  old,  he 
had  a  commission  sent  him  to  be  a  colonel  of  a  regiment  of 
foot,  when  the  fight  was  at  Edge-Hill,  and  he  raised  with- 
out beat  of  drum  eight  hundred  men,  most  of  them  pro- 
fessors and  professors'  sons,  near  six  score  volunteers  of  his 
own  company,  himself  going  a  volunteer  and  took  no  pay. 
He  afterwards  was  made  a  deputy  lieutenant  of  Kent,  in 
which  employment  he  was  zealous  and  diligent  for  the 
cause.  .  .  . 

"  He  went  upon  several  services  with  his  regiment,  as  at 
the  taking  of  the  Lord  Craven's  house  in  Surrey,  when 
several  of  his  own  company  of  volunteers,  men's  sons  of 
substance,  were  of  the  forlorn  hope.  He  was  also  at  the 
fight  at  Newbury,  where  he  was  in  imminent  danger,  a 
bullet  hitting  him  but  had  lost  its  force  to  enter.  He  lay 
some  nights  in  the  field,  there  being  neither  time  nor  con- 
veniency  to  fetch  his  tent,  which  he  had  with  him.  He  lay 
in  the  Lord  Roberts's  l  coach.  They  had  scarcity  of  salt, 
and  so  would  not  venture  upon  eating  flesh,  but  lived  some 
days  upon  candied  green  citron  and  biscuit.  He  was  in 
several  other  engagements.  Then  he  carried  his  regiment 
back  into  Kent.  .  .  . 

"  Not  long  after  his  own  native  county,  Sussex,  was  in 
danger  of  spoil  by  the  Cavalier  party,  who  had  taken 
Arundel  town,  and  fortified  the  town  and  castle;  Sir 
William  Waller  commanded  in  chief  against  them,  to 
whose  assistance  the  associated  counties  were  sent  for. 
Amongst  the  several  regiments  thy  grandfather's  regiment 
was  invited.  He  looking  upon  this  engagement  as  a  par- 
ticular service  to  his  own  county,  with  great  freedom  went 
to  Arundel;  there  they  had  a  long  siege  before  the  town. 
After  they  had  taken  the  town  they  besieged  the  castle;  it 
was  a  very  difficult,  hard  service,  but  being  taken,  thy 
grandfather  and  Colonel  Morley  had  the  government  and 

1  John,  Baron  Robartes,  1606-85,  a  colonel  in  the  Parliamentary 
army;  created  in  1679  first  Earl  of  Radnor. 


CHILLINGWORTH,CHEYNELL,SPRINGATE    115 

management  of  the  castle  committed  to  their  charge.  But 
few  weeks  after  this  the  disease  of  the  soldiers  that  were  in 
the  town  and  castle,  called  the  calenture  [or  sun-fever, 
frequent  at  sea  l]  seized  on  him  at  his  quarters,  at  one 
Wade's,  near  Arundel,  whither  he  sent  for  me  in  the  depth 
of  winter  frost  and  snow,  from  London,  to  come  to  him, 
which  was  very  difficult  for  me  to  compass,  being  great 
with  child  of  thy  mother,  the  waters  being  out  at  Newing- 
ton  and  several  places,  that  we  were  forced  to  row  in  the 
highways  with  a  boat,  and  take  the  things  in  the  coach 
with  us,  and  to  horses  to  be  led  with  strings  tied  to  their 
bridles,  and  to  swim  the  coach  and  horses  in  the  highways ; 
which  things  the  coachmen  were  so  sensible  of,  and  the 
badness  of  the  ways  between  London  and  Arundel  at  that 
time  of  the  year,  which  made  them  refuse  me  almost 
throughout  the  neighbouring  streets;  only  one  widow 
woman  that  kept  a  coach,  and  had  taken  a  great  deal  of 
our  money,  and  had  a  very  great  respect  for  thy  grand- 
father, undertook  to  have  her  servant  go,  though  he  should 
hazard  his  horses.  So  I  gave  him  a  very  great  price 
(twelve  pounds)  to  carry  me  down,  and  to  return,  if  not 
with  him,  within  a  day's  stay.  It  was  a  very  tedious  jour- 
ney, wherein  I  was  benighted,  and  overthrown  in  the  dark 
into  a  hedge,  which  when  we  came  to  come  out  we  had 
hardly  room  to  get  out,  for  fear  of  falling  down  a  very 
deep  precipice  that  was  on  the  other  side,  which  if  we  had 
fallen  on  that  side  we  had  certainly  broken  ourselves  to 
pieces.  We  had  only  a  guide  with  us,  that  was  the  mess- 
enger from  thy  grandfather,  who  riding  on  a  white  horse 
was  the  only  help  we  had  to  follow  in  the  way. 

"  Coming  by  a  garrison  late  at  night,  the  Colonel  whereof 
required  the  guard  to  stop  the  coach,  and  give  notice  to 
him  by  firing  a  gun,  which  he  did ;  upon  which  the  Colonel 

1  During  the  first  cruise  of  the  "ship-money"  fleet  in  1635  six 
hundred  men  died  on  board  in  a  month  from  "  stale  water  and  stink- 
ing beef." 


n6     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

came  immediately  down  to  invite  me  to  stay,  and,  to  en- 
courage me,  told  me  that  my  husband  was  like  to  mend, 
and  that  he  understood  I  was  near  my  time,  beseeched  me 
I  would  not  hazard  myself.  Upon  which  the  coachman 
(being  sensible  of  the  difficulties  he  should  undergo)  would 
needs  force  me  to  lodge  in  the  garrison,  saying  his  horses 
would  not  hold  out,  and  they  would  be  spoiled ;  to  which 
I  replied  that  I  was  obliged  to  pay  for  all  the  horses  if 
they  suffered,  and  that  I  was  resolved  not  to  go  out  of  the 
coach  unless  it  broke  until  I  came  so  near  the  house  that 
I  could  compass  it  on  foot;  so  finding  my  resolution  he 
put  on. 

"  When  we  came  to  Arundel  we  met  with  a  most  dismal 
sight:  the  town  being  depopulated,  all  the  windows  broken 
with  the  great  guns,  and  the  soldiers  making  stables  of  all 
the  shops  and  lower  rooms:  and  there  being  no  light  in 
the  town  but  what  came  from  the  light  in  the  stables,  we 
passed  through  the  town  toward  his  quarters.  Within  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  house  the  horses  were  at  a  stand, 
and  we  could  not  understand  the  reason  of  it,  so  we  sent 
our  guide  down  to  the  house  for  a  candle  and  lantern,  and 
to  come  to  our  assistance ;  upon  which  the  report  came  to 
my  husband,  who  told  them  they  were  mistaken,  he  knew 
I  could  not  come  I  was  so  near  my  time;  but  they  affirm- 
ing that  it  was  so,  he  commanded  them  to  sit  him  up  in  his 
bed,  'that  I  may  see  her,'  said  he,  'when  she  comes';  but 
the  wheel  of  the  coach  being  pitched  in  the  root  of  a  tree 
was  some  time  before  I  could  come.  It  was  about  twelve 
at  night  when  we  arrived,  and  as  soon  as  I  put  my  foot 
into  the  hall  (there  being  a  pair  of  stairs  out  of  the  hall 
into  his  chamber)  I  heard  his  voice, '  Why  will  you  lie  to 
me!  if  she  be  come,  let  me  hear  her  voice;'  which  struck 
me  so  that  I  had  hardly  power  to  get  up  stairs;  but  being 
borne  up  by  two,  he  seeing  me,  the  fever  having  took  his 
head,  in  a  manner  sprang  up,  as  if  he  would  come  out  of 
his  bed,  saying,  '  Let  me  embrace  thee  before  I  die;  I  am 


CHILLINGWORTH,  CHEYNELL,  SPRINGATE    1 17 

going  to  thy  God  and  my  God.'  I  found  most  of  his 
officers  attending  on  him  with  great  care  and  signification 
of  sorrow  for  the  condition  he  was  in,  they  greatly  loving 
him.  The  purple  spots  came  out  the  day  before,  and  now 
were  struck  in,  and  the  fever  got  into  his  head,  upon  which 
they  caused  him  to  keep  his  bed,  having  not  been  per- 
suaded to  go  to  bed  no  day  since  his  illness  till  then,  which 
had  been  five  days.  Before  his  spots  came  out,  they  seeing 
his  dangerous  condition  (so  many  Kentish  men,  both  com- 
manders and  others  having  died  of  it  in  a  week's  time  near 
his  quarters,)  constrained  him  to  keep  his  chamber,  but 
such  was  his  activeness  of  spirit  and  stoutness  of  his  heart 
that  he  could  not  yield  to  this  ill  that  was  upon  him,  but 
covenanted  with  them  that  he  would  shoot  birds  with  his 
cross-bow  out  of  the  windows,  which  he  did  till  the  fever 
took  his  head  and  the  spots  went  in ;  and  after  that  the 
fever  was  so  violent,  and  he  so  young  and  strong  of  body, 
and  his  blood  so  hot  (being  but  about  the  age  of  23)  that 
they  were  forced  to  sit  round  the  bed  to  keep  him  in,  but 
he  spake  no  evil  or  raving  words  at  all,  but  spoke  seriously 
about  his  dying  to  my  doctor,  which  I  brought  down  with 
me  by  his  orders." 

For  two  days  the  devoted  wife  watched  by  the  sick  man, 
cooling  his  parched  lips  with  her  own  cool  lips,  often  for 
hours  at  a  time,  regardless  of  infection  and  of  great  pain  to 
herself  in  her  condition.  At  length  he  died,  having  a 
moment  before  called  upon  a  kinsman  of  his  "  Anthony, 
come  quickly";  who  at  that  very  instant  came  riding 
into  the  yard,  being  come  many  miles  to  see  him.1  "  When 
he  was  dead,"  says  the  poor  lady,  "  then  I  could  weep." 

1  Probably  his  first  cousin,  Anthony  Springett,  third  son  of  Sir 
Thomas  Springett  of  Broyle  Place,  and  younger  brother  of  Herbert 
Springett,  created  a  Baronet  at  the  Restoration,  of  whom  a  tablet  in 
Ringmer  Church  states  that  he  "  was  a  true  sonne  of  the  Church  of 
England ;  and  for  his  love  and  loyalty  to  his  King  and  Country,  his 
death  was  lamented  by  all  that  knew  him." 


n8      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

His  body  was  placed  on  his  own  ammunition  waggon 
and  taken  to  Ringmer,  where  he  was  born,  and  where  some 
of  his  ancestors  lay.  There  was  no  public  funeral,  as  "  it 
was  found  that  things  were  not  in  a  condition  to  admit  of 
such  a  charge,  which  would  have  been  some  hundreds." 
He  died  in  debt  to  the  extent  of  two  thousand  pounds, 
having  expended  large  sums,  including  his  wife's  portion, 
on  contributions  to  the  Parliamentary  funds,  and  on  fitting 
out  and  provisioning  his  own  troop  of  volunteers;  and  he 
had  but  twelve  pounds  in  money  in  his  trunk,  and  many 
large  sums  to  be  paid. 

His  widow  pays  an  eloquent  and  lengthy  tribute  to  his 
religious  zeal,  and  his  generous  charity ;  and  adds :  "  He 
was  of  a  most  courteous,  affable  carriage  towards  all ;  most 
ingeniously  inclined  from  a  very  lad,  carving  and  forming 
things  with  his  knife  for  his  tools;  so  industriously  active 
that  he  rarely  ever  was  idle,  but  when  he  could  not  be 
employed  abroad  in  shooting  at  a  mark  with  guns,  pistols, 
cross-bows,  or  long-bows,  managing  his  horses  (which  he 
brought  up  and  managed  himself,  teaching  them  bold- 
ness in  charging)  in  such  things  as  were  needful  for  ser- 
vice; when  he  could  not  be,  as  I  said,  thus  engaged 
abroad,  then  he  would  fence  within  doors,  make  cross- 
bow strings,  placing  the  sight  with  that  accurateness  as  if 
it  had  been  his  trade,  or  casting  of  bullets  of  all  sorts, 
feathering  his  arrows  that  were  for  his  carbines,  or  pull- 
ing his  watch  to  pieces ;  training  up  his  servants,  and  him- 
self using  the  postures  of  war  according  to  books  he  had 
for  that  purpose.  He  was  also  an  artist  in  shooting  and 
fishing,  and  making  of  lines  and  ordering  of  baits  and 
things  for  that  purpose.  He  was  a  great  lover  of  coursing, 
but  he  managed  his  dogs  himself;  which  things  I  mention 
to  shew  thee  his  ingenuity,  but  the  vanity  of  those  things 
his  mind  was  out  of  when  he  was  engaged  in  religion." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS 

WITHIN  a  month  of  the  outbreak  of  civil  war  Par- 
liament declared  that  all  charges  and  damages 
which  had  fallen  on  the  Commonwealth  since  his  Majesty's 
departure  from  the  Parliament  should  be  borne  by  the 
delinquents  and  other  malignant  and  disaffected  persons; 
"  and  that  all  his  Majesty's  good  and  well  affected  subjects 
who,  by  the  loan  of  moneys  or  otherwise  at  their  charge, 
have  assisted  the  Commonwealth  or  shall  in  like  manner 
hereafter  assist  the  Commonwealth  in  time  of  extreme 
danger,  may  be  repaid  all  sums  of  money  by  them  lent  for 
those  purposes,  and  be  satisfied  their  charges  so  sustained 
out  of  the  estates  of  the  said  delinquents,  and  of  the 
malignant  and  disaffected  party  in  this  kingdom."1  This 
declaration  could  only  be  justified  on  the  grounds  that  the 
Parliament  and  its  supporters  were  the  nation,  and  the 
King's  followers  a  mere  handful  of  rebels  and  traitors. 
If  it  was  unjustifiable  it  was  no  less  impolitic.  The  threat 
of  confiscation  converted  many  a  lukewarm  Royalist  into  a 
furious  partisan.  Many  who  had  hoped  to  avoid  all  fighting 
were  now  ready  to  fight  to  the  bitter  end. 

A  month  later,  on  I  5th  October  1642,  the  Lords  passed 
a  further  resolution  of  the  Commons.  All  who  refused  to 
contribute  to  the  charge  of  the  Commonwealth  were  to  be 
imprisoned  and  disarmed.  The  revenues  of  bishops,  deans, 
and  chapters,  and  of  all  notorious  delinquents  who  had 

1  Lords'  Journals,  v,  341. 
119 


120     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

taken  up  arms  for  the  King,  were  to  be  sequestered  for  the 
use  of  the  Commonwealth.1 

The  sequestrating  Committee  for  the  county  of  Sussex 
was  at  this  time  constituted  as  follows:  Sir  Thomas 
Pelham,  Bart.,  Sir  Thomas  Eversfield,  Sir  W.  Goring, 
Anthony  Stapley,  Herbert  Morley,  Thomas  Whitfield, 
John  Baker,  Herbert  Hay,  Herbert  Springett,  Ralph  Cooper, 
Hall  Ravenscroft,  Edward  Apsley,  John  Downes,  William 
Cawley,  Edward  Higgon,  Thomas  Chate,  George  Oglander, 
George  Simpson,  John  Burbridge, Thomas  Middleton,  James 
Temple,Thomas  Shirley,  Henry  Shelley,and  Herbert  Board, 
Esquires ;  Captain  Thomas  Collins,  Captain  Carleton,  and 
Captain  Everden. 

One  of  these,  Sir  Thomas  Eversfield  of  Den,  Horsham, 
was  shortly  to  be  a  victim  of  this  very  body;  his  own 
estate  was  sequestered  on  28th  September  1643,  "for 
deserting  on  July  i8th  the  service  of  the  Commonwealth."2 

In  March  of  the  following  year  an  Ordinance  declared 
that  all  who  had  directly  or  indirectly  assisted  the  King 
were  to  be  reckoned  as  delinquents,  and  that  their  property 
was  to  be  sequestered  by  the  Committee  of  the  county  in 
which  it  was  situate;  this  being  subsequently  mitigated  by 
a  provision  to  set  aside  a  fifth  of  the  income  of  a  seques- 
tered estate  for  the  benefit  of  the  wife  and  children  of  the 
delinquent 

During  the  first  part  of  the  war  these  matters  were 
managed  by  a  Committee  of  the  House,  which  exercised 
control  over  the  County  Committees,  and  sometimes  gave 
powers  to  generals  in  the  field  to  levy  fines  for  the  payment 
of  their  troops.  At  Chichester,  in  1642,  we  have  seen  that 
Sir  John  Morley  paid  Waller  ^300.  At  the  fall  of  Arundel 
John  Caryll,  of  Harting,  paid  Waller  .£600  by  way  of 
composition  for  being  in  the  Castle,  although  not  in  arms ; 
he  stated  that  his  father  Sir  John  Caryll's  house  lying 

1  See  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  i  and  ii.  2  S.  A.  C.,  v,  54. 


THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS  121 

midway  between  Winchester  and  Arundel,  Sir  Ralph 
Hopton  compelled  him  to  accompany  him  when  he  marched 
into  Sussex,  and  that  he  was  detained  at  Arundel  until  its 
surrender  to  Sir  William  Waller.  He  hoped  that  this 
payment  of  £600  would  save  his  estate  from  sequestration, 
but  it  was  sequestered  four  months  after.1 

In  January  1644,  the  Parliament  being  anxious  to  attract 
deserters  from  the  King  at  Oxford  offered  pardon  to 
Royalists  who  would  submit  before  a  fixed  date,  and  should 
pay  a  sum  to  be  assessed  by  way  of  compounding  for  their 
delinquency.  In  1645,  after  the  capture  of  Bristol,  when  all 
England  was  falling  under  the  authority  of  the  Parliament, 
this  principle  of  compounding  was  made  general.  A 
Royalist  who  desired  to  free  his  estates  from  sequestration 
was  to  present  himself  before  the  Committee  for  com- 
pounding which  sat  at  Goldsmiths'  Hall.  He  was  required 
to  take  the  Covenant  and  the  negative  oath,  which  bound 
him  never  again  to  bear  arms  against  the  Parliament.  He 
then  had  to  declare  full  particulars  with  regard  to  the 
extent  and  value  of  his  estate,  any  evasion  or  misstatement 
rendering  him  liable  to  a  heavy  fine.  The  matter  was 
generally  referred  to  the  County  Committee,  especially  with 
regard  to  any  circumstance  of  extenuation  alleged  by 
the  applicant.  A  fine  was  them  imposed,  varying  in 
severity  according  to  the  position  of  the  delinquent.  Mem- 
bers of  Parliament  might  be  mulcted  in  half  their  estates — 
John  Ashburnham  was  fined  £1,270,  half  the  value  of  his 
estate  * — less  distinguished  Royalists  might  escape  for  one- 
sixth.  The  proceedings  were  often  extremely  complicated, 
and  frequently  lasted  over  several  years,  numerous  peti- 
tions from  claimants  to  estates  and  other  persons  interested 
having  to  be  considered  and  reported  on.  A  perusal  of 
many  of  the  cases  gives  the  impression  that,  on  the  whole, 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  917;  see  also  West  Grinstead  et  les 
Caryll,  par  Max  de  Trenquale'on,  1893. 
•  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1863. 


122     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  Committee  at  Goldsmiths'  Hall  was  more  lenient  than 
the  County  Committees,  although  in  exceptional  instances 
the  latter  may  have  been  unduly  favourable  to  their  friends. 

Of  the  great  nobles,  some,  such  as  Thomas  Earl  of 
Arundel,  submitted  to  the  spoliation  and  sale  of  their 
estates  rather  than  acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  Par- 
liament so  far  as  to  compound  for  them,  though  by  so 
doing  they  forfeited  the  whole,  excepting  the  fifth  reserved 
to  the  families  of  delinquents.1  But  the  great  majority  of 
the  upper  and  middle-class  Royalists  took  the  course 
offered  them — either  to  release  their  property  from  seques- 
tration, or,  on  their  own  discovery  of  their  delinquency,  to 
avoid  it.  In  the  latter  cases  there  was  a  mitigation  of  the 
fine. 

In  Sussex  the  leading  Royalist  gentry  compounded  for 
their  estates,  and  particulars  of  their  compositions  are  to  be 
found  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Committee.  The  fines 
imposed  were  often  enormous,  when  we  remember  that 
they  must  be  multiplied  about  four  and  half  times  to  bring 
them  to  the  values  of  to-day. 

Sir  Thomas  Bowyer,  Bart.,  of  Leighthorne,  was  one  of 
the  first  to  avail  himself  of  the  Ordinance  of  the  3Oth 
January  1644.  On  2/th  February  he  pleaded  that  he  had 
come  in,  not  on  account  of  sequestration,  nor  for  the  benefit 
of  the  declaration,  but  from  his  wish  to  serve  Parliament. 
He  had  not  been  out  of  his  house  for  fifteen  months,  and 
never  sent  horses,  arms,  or  money  to  the  King,  except 
when  the  Sheriff  of  Chichester  forced  his  servants  to  do 
it.  No  arrangement  seems  to  have  been  come  to  at  the 
time,  for  Sir  Thomas  appealed  to  the  Barons  of  the  Ex- 
chequer against  his  sequestration,  and  the  case  had  not 
been  decided  at  his  death,  in  1650,  when  he  left  thirteen 
children  and  debts  of  £8,000.  His  son  Sir  Thomas  begged, 
and  was  granted,  one-fifth  of  the  sequestered  estate.  In 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  v,  xii. 


THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS  123 

May  1652,  the  Barons  of  the  Exchequer  having  dismissed 
the  appeal,  leave  was  given  to  compound,  and  the  fine  was 
fixed  at  one-third  of  the  estate,  £2,033  iBs.  $d.  It  may  be 
noted  in  this  case  that  William  Cawley  of  Chichester,  the 
regicide,  begged  allowance  of  a  rent  of  £50  on  Runcton 
Farm,  North  Mundham,  bought  in  1637  for  £625  from  Sir 
Thomas  Bowyer,  Bart,  for  the  lives  of  the  petitioner's  three 
sons,  the  premises  having  been  sequestered  for  Bowyer's 
delinquency.1 

Thomas  May  of  Rawmere  was  also  an  early  applicant 
to  compound.  He  took  the  Covenant  at  Chichester  on 
2oth  February  1644.  He  stated  that  since  he  was  in 
Chichester,  when  it  was  taken  by  Sir  William  Waller,  he 
had  lived  at  Rawmere,  being  tenant  of  his  own  sequestered 
estate;  he  had  never  assisted  his  Majesty  with  horse,  money, 
plate,  or  arms.  Fine  imposed  £900,  on  24th  February  1646." 
Sir  John  Morley  made  a  petition  to  compound.  He  urged 
that  he  had  contributed  nothing  willingly  to  the  King's 
forces  at  Chichester,  as  was  proved  by  his  voluntary  pay- 
ment of  ^"300  to  Sir  William  Waller,  from  whom  he 
procured  release  and  protection.  The  County  Committee 
reported  that  he  had  a  commission  of  array  from  "  the  late 
King,"  was  with  the  High  Sheriff  of  Sussex  in  Chichester, 
and  was  active  in  abetting  the  mutiny  raised  by  malignants 
in  the  city,  but  that  he  had  since  taken  the  Covenant  and 
was  conformable;  that  he  had  .£1,140  a  year,  all  seques- 
tered, and  £500  a  year  fallen  to  him  on  the  late  death 
of  his  mother,  but  it  was  in  the  King's  quarters,  and  he 
received  nothing.  In  January  1645  a  fine  of  £500  was 
imposed,  and  the  estate  released.3 

Richard  Williams,  late  Town  Clerk  of  Chichester,  peti- 
tioned in  March  1644.  He  was  led  out  of  the  way  by 
threats  and  force,  but  returned  as  the  prodigal,  in  repent- 
ance and  with  tears,  resolved  never  thereafter  to  offend, 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  833-4.  a  Ibid.,  834. 

3  Ibid.,  837-8. 


124     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

but  to  sacrifice  his  life  and  fortunes  in  the  Parliament's 
service.  He  had  a  wife  and  six  children,  also  six  orphan 
children  entrusted  to  his  care.  He  had  no  lands.  He 
begged  restoration  to  such  places  as  he  formerly  held, 
discharge  of  his  sequestration,  and  restitution  of  his  house 
and  goods,  lately  taken  for  the  quarters  of  Sir  William 
Waller.  The  Committee  proposed  a  fine  of  £40,  it  appear- 
ing that  he  was  forward  in  executing  the  Commission  of 
Array  in  Chichester;  his  estate  was  £33  6s.  8d.  a  year,  of 
which  £13  135-.  6d.  was  by  his  office.1 

The  Earl  of  Thanet,  of  Tufton,  Sussex,  represented  his 
case  as  one  of  special  hardship,  because  in  December  1643 
he  paid  .£2,000  on  pain  of  sequestration.  Later  he  lost 
through  the  wars  6,000  oz.  of  plate,  horses  and  sheep 
worth  £2,000,  a  house  which  cost  £32,000,  woods  and 
timber  worth  £20,000,  beside  his  parks  and  deer,  which 
were  destroyed,  and  his  household  stuff,  taken  from  his 
three  houses  at  Windsor,  Heathfield,  and  London.  On 
these  grounds  his  fine  was  first  set  at  £4,000,  but  a  remon- 
strance was  made  that  as  his  real  estate  was  worth  £10,000 
a  year,  and  as  he  had  not  only  been  in  actual  war  against 
the  Parliament,  but  had  sent  plate  and  money  to  the  King, 
his  fine  ought  to  be  £20,000.  His  case  came  before  Par- 
liament on  i  Qth  October  1644,  and  he  was  fined  £9,000 — 
in  spite  of  the  County  Committee's  complaint  that  the 
discharge  of  the  chief  malignants  was  injurious  to  the  Par- 
liamentary cause.2 

The  Committee  was  by  no  means  unreasonable  with 
regard  to  reducing  fines  where  due  cause  could  be  shown. 
In  the  case  of  Sir  Edward  Bishop  of  Parham  it  was 
reported  to  the  House  of  Commons  in  August  1644  that 
he  was  taken  in  arms  at  Arundel  Castle,  and  was  a  prisoner 
in  the  Tower;  that  he  had  been  "very  opposite"  to  the 
Parliament  from  the  first;  and  that  his  lands  were  worth 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  838.  a  Ibid.,  839-40. 


THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS  125 

£2,500  a  year,  with  a  great  personal  estate.  A  fine  of 
£12,300  was  proposed.  The  House  admitted  him  to  com- 
pound at  one-third  of  his  estate  at  least;  although  the 
Committee  for  compounding  requested  that  he  might  not 
be  admitted  to  compound,  being  a  "  great  malignant."  A 
year  later,  in  November  1645,  he  was  brought  before  the 
Committee  on  a  warrant,  sent  to  the  Lieutenant  of  the 
Tower,  and  informed  that  he  was  fined  £7,500,  his  estate 
being  found  to  be  £1,500  a  year.  He  replied  that  he  could 
not  pay,  and  begged  to  have  one-third  of  his  estate  set  out 
and  sold.  During  the  next  few  months  he  continued  to 
represent  that  the  fine  was  beyond  his  ability  to  pay;  that 
he  was  loaded  with  his  father's  debts,  and  was  but  a  tenant 
for  life,  whereas  the  Committee  had  supposed  him  to  be 
seized  of  an  estate  of  inheritance.  The  fine  was  then 
reduced  to  £4,790.  In  July  1648  he  was  ordered  to  be 
committed  to  custody  for  neglecting  payment  of  his  fine. 
He  died  shortly  afterwards,  and  the  composition  not  having 
been  completed,  the  County  Commissioners  re-sequestered 
the  estate.  After  prolonged  representations  by  his  family, 
the  lands  being  claimed,  part  by  his  widow  for  jointure, 
and  the  rest  as  entailed  or  settled  on  his  children,  the 
estate  was  finally  discharged  on  their  behalf  in  I654.1 

Henry  Bishop  of  Henfield,  third  son  of  Sir  Thomas, 
begged  on  1st  October  1646  to  compound  for  delinquency 
in  bearing  arms.  In  January  1645,  being  at  Bristol,  and 
resolved  to  make  his  peace  with  the  Parliament,  he  got  a 
pass  to  London  for  the  wife  of  Mr.  Netherway,  a  brewer 
with  whom  he  was  quartered,  to  use  means  thereto.  She 
did  not  return  within  six  weeks,  so  the  petitioner  took  ship 
to  Virginia,  and  lived  on  his  plantation  there,  till  he  re- 
turned with  a  letter  from  the  Council  of  that  country  to  the 
Speaker.  He  was  discharged  by  Order  of  Parliament  on 
1 3th  February  1647  "  on  tne  earnest  desire  of  the  Colony 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  849-50. 


126     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Virginia,  signified  in  a  letter  from  the  Grand  Assembly." 
There  is  no  mention  of  a  fine.1 

On  the  occasion  of  surrender  of  towns  or  garrisons  on 
Articles  of  War,  these  Articles  commonly  stipulated  the 
rates  of  composition  to  be  paid  by  persons  surrendering, 
which  were  always  below  the  usual  rates.  We  find  many 
instances  of  claims  to  the  benefit  of  such  articles.  The  usual 
rate  under  Articles  of  Surrender  seems  to  have  been  one- 
tenth.  Robert  Anderson,  Counsellor  at  Law,  of  Chichester, 
surrendered  on  Oxford  Articles  and  was  fined  at  one-tenth, 
£407  4s.  Sd.*  On  3Oth  April  1646  Colonel  George  Gounter 
of  Racton  begged  to  compound  on  Truro  Articles 3  for 
delinquency  in  bearing  arms  against  the  Parliament.  He 
had  a  wife  and  many  small  children  and  was  indebted 
£2,000.  His  estate  yielded  only  £130  a  year,  and  his 
dwelling-house  was  much  defaced.  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax 
pleaded  for  moderation  in  dealing  with  him;  in  the  Treaty 
at  Truro  "  Colonel  Gounter  was  a  hostage,  and  his  fair  de- 
meanour deserves  all  civil  respect.  I  desire  you  will  please 
to  consider  him  in  a  moderate  composition,  and  consider 
the  seasonable  service  done  in  the  disbanding  of  those  horse 
at  that  time."  Gounter  was  fined  at  one-sixth,  £870,  reduced 
on  the  confirmation  of  the  Truro  Articles  to  £580,  and 
further  reduced  subsequently  to  one-tenth,  £520.  Gounter 
pleaded  that  he  had  been  obliged  to  sell  great  part  of  his 
estate  to  John  Comber  of  Donnington,  Co.  Sussex,  to 
satisfy  the  principal  and  interest  of  a  mortgage  created 
before  the  war,  amounting  to  £1,625.* 

Many  other  Sussex  men  surrendered  at  Truro.  John 
Taylor  of  Itchenor  was  fined  at  one-sixth,  £36,  reduced  on 
Fairfax's  representation  to  £24.  Richard  Taylor  of  Earnley 
was  fined  £546,  reduced  to  £364."  Richard  Booker  of 
Pulborough  was  fined  at  one-sixth,  £37  IQJ.  He  was  in  arms 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1518.  *  Ibid.,  1493. 

3  Hopton  had  surrendered  to  Fairfax  at  Truro  on  i4th  March  1646. 

4  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1237-8.  '  Ibid.,  1258. 


THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS  127 

again  in  1648,  and  was  fined  a  further  £37  ios.,  although 
he  begged  discharge  as  not  worth  £200.  In  1652  he  was 
sequestered  for  non-payment.  Thomas  Craddock  of 
Chichester  compounded  on  Truro  Articles.  Sir  Thomas 
Fairfax  recommended  him  for  a  moderate  composition,  he 
being  "  a  gentleman  that  hath  fairly  demeaned  himself  in 
this  business."  l  He  was  fined  £40. 

The  County  Committee  at  Chichester  seems  to  have 
been  occasionally  rather  officious,  and  even  to  have  pro- 
voked resistance.  In  January  1647,  acting  on  an  order  of 
the  House  of  Commons  for  securing  delinquents  who  had 
not  compounded,  it  arrested  Counter — doubtless  either 
Colonel  George  Counter  or  his  brother  Thomas — William 
Coldham,  and  one  Rayman.  There  was  an  attempt  to 
rescue  the  prisoners,  "  in  which  John  Farrington  was  very 
forward,  and  gained  over  Captain  Sydney  an  officer  of  this 
garrison ;  it  was  threatened  that  if  the  delinquents  were  not 
discharged  by  fair  means,  they  should  be  by  foul ;  the  Cap- 
tain sent  for  a  file  of  musketeers  to  rescue  them,  but  the 
mayor,  at  request  of  one  of  our  committee,  offered  to  assist 
and  command  the  City  trained  bands." 2  The  Committee 
for  compounding  ordered  that  Counter  and  Rayman,  who 
had  petitioned,  should  be  released  on  security,  or  they 
could  not  perfect  their  compositions. 

William  Coldham,  junior,  of  Stedham,  petitioned  the 
local  committee  for  his  release;  he  was  incapable  of  com- 
pounding, his  stock  having  been  taken  away,  and  he  being 
much  in  debt,  with  only  an  estate  for  life.  But  he  was  fined 
at  one-sixth,;£826  17^.  6d.  His  father  was  also  fined  £289  5-r. 
on  his  own  petition  in  i649.3 

The  desire  of  applicants  to  put  their  case  as  favourably 
as  possible  sometimes  led  to  strange  expressions.  In 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1131. 

*  Ibid.,  55.    County    Committee   of  Sussex  to  the  Committee  at 
Goldsmiths'  Hall. 

*  Ibid.,  1637. 


128     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

October  1645  Thomas  Sackvile  of  Sedlescomb  applied  to 
compound,  having  been  in  arms  for  the  King.  Being  a 
younger  brother  and  a  soldier  of  fortune,  he  had  thrice 
listed  at  the  Guildhall  for  service  in  Ireland,  but  was  left 
out  on  the  settling  of  the  regiment.  He  went  to  York  till 
his  elder  brother  died,  "  which  made  him  consider,  that 
which  he  doth  believe  are  your  thoughts,  that  he  had  an 
interest  in  this  Kingdom,  which  he  would  not  have  to  be 
within  an  arbitrary  power,  or  the  disposal  of  any  man's 
will."  He  left  the  King's  employ  when  it  was  in  its  best 
condition.  Went  into  France,  and  continued  at  Rouen, 
never  seeing  the  Queen  nor  the  Court;  had  done  nothing 
against  the  State  since  his  estate  fell  to  him.  Fine  .£400.  * 

The  case  of  John  Lewknor  of  West  Dean  seems  a 
rather  hard  one.  In  April  1646  he  begged  to  compound, 
and  stated  that  in  1643,  when  quietly  residing  at  home  in 
perfect  obedience  to  the  Parliament,  being  then  the  King's 
ward,  aged  but  nineteen,  he  was  by  a  party  of  the  Parlia- 
ment's soldiers  causelessly  pillaged  of  his  goods,  stripped 
of  his  clothes,  violated  in  his  person,  and  so  threatened  with 
wounds  and  torments  that  he  was  forced  to  fly  to  the 
Royalist  quarters,  six  miles  distant.  The  soldiers  had  no 
other  pretext  against  him  save  that  he  had  some  of  his 
name  on  the  adverse  party,  arguing  that  he  was  therefore 
a  malignant  His  narrative  was  notoriously  known  to  all 
the  country,  and  the  County  Committee  had  expressed 
much  sorrow  for  the  accident.  But  for  this  violence,  he 
would  never  have  taken  up  arms  against  the  Parliament. 
He  had  been  sequestered,  lost  many  of  his  goods,  and 
his  woods  had  been  felled  at  a  loss  of  ,£2,000.  He  begged 
the  benefit  of  Barnstaple  Articles,  but  apparently  failing 
to  produce  proof  of  his  surrender  there  (the  General 
stated  that  "  he  was  only  informed  of  petitioner's  being  at 
Barnstaple  ")  he  was  fined  at  one-sixth,  .£1,440;  "  but  if  he 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  940. 


THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS  129 

settle  £150  a  year  on  the  ministers  of  East  Dean,  Charlton, 
and  Chilgrove,  co.  Sussex,  the  Committee  will  request  the 
House  to  remit  the  fine."1  His  mother,  Mary  Lewknor, 
having  been  sequestered  "  for  adhering  to  the  King  "  was 
fined  at  one-tenth,  £522*  Another  Lewknor — Thomas 
Lewknor  of  Amberley — described  as  "  Sir  Edward  Ford's 
menial  servant,"  who  had  gone  with  his  master  into  Arundel 
Castle,  and  "  divers  other  garrisons  of  the  late  King,"  was 
fined  at  one-sixth,  £84  in  May  i649.3 

This  Thomas  Lewknor  was  the  son  of  Frey  Lewknor, 
who  held  a  lease  of  Amberley  Castle  from  the  Bishop  of 
Chichester.  With  other  episcopal  property  the  Castle  was 
seized  by  the  Parliament.  In  September  1648  it  was  sold 
to  James  Butler  of  London,  merchant,  with  all  its  appur- 
tenances for  ^"3,341  14$.  2.\d?  Mr.  John  Goring,  a  connec- 
tion of  the  Lewknors,  was  in  trouble  in  1651.  William 
Short  of  Amberley,  victualler,  deposed  before  the  County 
Committee  for  sequestrations  that  when  the  Sussex  insur- 
rection took  place  in  1648,  Mr.  John  Goring  of  Amberley 
desired  him  to  ride  a  horse  with  arms  to  the  Lord  Goring, 
and  promised  him  great  rewards  if  the  King's  forces  should 
prevail  against  the  Parliament's,  telling  him  that  he  should 
then  be  made  a  colonel  in  the  King's  army.  And  further, 
that  about  half  a  year  since  Goring  took  a  glass  of  beer 
and  kneeling  down  drank  a  health  to  Prince  Charles  and 
to  the  confusion  of  the  Parliament,  telling  the  deponent 
that  there  were  none  in  the  parliament  house  but  rogues, 
knaves  and  upstarts,  and  that  he  was  a  better  man  than 
any  man  sitting  there.  Another  witness  deposed  that  at 
the  beginning  of  the  troubles  John  Goring  would  have  had 
the  inhabitants  of  the  parish  of  Amberley  bring  their 
goods  into  Amberley  Castle,  and  that  he  would  have  se- 
cured it,  and  had  said  that  if  the  parish  would  but  join  him 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1215  (see  alsoflost,  p.  294). 

2  Ibid.,  1216.  3  Ibid.,  2044. 
4  S.  A.  C.,  xvii,  217. 

K 


130     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

there  was  never  a  round-headed  rogue  should  have  his 
castle.  According  to  Dallaway l  Amberley  Castle  was 
plundered  and  dismantled  by  Waller's  soldiery,  but  there 
seems  to  be  no  authority  for  this  statement. 

Among  other  cases  which,  on  the  petitioner's  showing, 
appear  hard,  was  that  of  Robert  Exton,  of  Chichester.2 
He  petitioned  in  1645  to  compound  for  delinquency  in 
absenting  himself  from  his  dwelling  under  threats  from 
the  enemy.  He  never  acted  against  Parliament  by  person 
or  purse,  but  lent  Parliament  £50  on  the  Public  Faith,  and 
on  the  reducing  of  Chichester  by  Sir  William  Waller,  he 
paid  £90  to  his  soldiers,  and  had  a  house  worth  £9  a  year 
pulled  down  for  the  better  security  of  the  town.  He  was 
indebted  £500,  and  had  five  children.  Fine  £i5O.3  Sarah 
Cox,  widow,  also  of  Chichester,  begged  to  compound  for 
delinquency  in  leaving  her  house,  which  she  was  forced 
to  do,  it  being  plundered  by  the  Parliament's  forces.  She 
went  to  Sherborne,  where  her  daughter  lived;  she  had 
never  assisted  the  King.  Fine  £120* 

Of  well-known  Sussex  Cavaliers,  Sir  Thomas  Lunsford 
of  Lunsford  was  admitted  to  compound  in  1649  at  one-sixth, 
£300.  He  had  no  personal  estate,  and  was  much  indebted.3 
Colonel  John  Apsley  of  Pulborough  was  returned  as  a 
delinquent  in  1644,  but  no  proceedings  were  taken.  In  1653 
he  petitioned  to  compound,  and  was  fined  at  one-third,  ^100, 
subsequently  reduced  on  allowance  fora  mortgage  to^o.6 
Sir  Edward  Alford  of  Offington,  M.P.  for  Arundel,  but 
"disabled"  by  Parliament,  22nd  January  1643,  admitted 
delinquency  in  leaving  London  for  York  in  June  1642, 
living  in  the  King's  quarters,  lending  the  King  £200,  and 
sitting  in  the  first  assembly  at  Oxford.  His  estate  was 
much  impoverished,  had  lain  under  sequestration  for  two 

1  Rape  of  Arundel,  p.  230. 

2  Mayor  of  Chichester,  1641-2;  see  ante,  p.  36. 

3  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  952.  4  Ibid.,  1084. 
5  Ibid.,  1263.  6  Ibid.,  868. 


THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS  131 

years,  and  was  heavily  charged.  His  fine  was  set  at  £2,908 
reduced  in  1649  to  £1,284  I5-f-  on  Exeter  Articles,  £1,000 
to  be  taken  off  if  he  settle  £100  a  year  from  Cheltenham 
Rectory  on  the  ministers.  The  case  dragged  on  until 

I653-1 

Sir  Henry  Compton  of  Brambletye  was  fined  at  one-tenth, 
£5,289  los.  6d.,  but  £3,675  to  be  abated  if  he  agreed  to 
settle  various  sums  derived  from  rectories  on  the  ministers 
thereof.2  Sir  Henry's  daughter  married  John  Lumley,  son 
and  heir  of  Richard,  Viscount  Lumley,  the  owner  of  Stan- 
stead,  both  of  whom  compounded  as  delinquents.  In 
September  1646  Lord  Lumley  was  fined  £1,980,  and 
John  Lumley  £i, 800, for  his  estate  in  reversion;  the  former 
on  Bristol,  and  the  latter  on  Winchester  Articles.  In 
October  Lord  Lumley  complained  that  although  the  order 
of  suspension,  pending  the  payment  of  his  fine,  had  been 
served  on  the  County  Commissioners  of  Sussex,  they  were 
carrying  away  his  woods  formerly  felled, "  and  by  proclama- 
tion in  church  and  market,  give  all  who  have  contracted  for 
any  woods,  liberty  to  do  the  like."  : 

The  estate  of  Lord  Montague,  the  owner  of  Cowdray,  a 
papist,  was  sequestered  as  to  two-thirds  by  order  of  the 
House  of  Commons  in  1643.  William  Yalden  of  Black- 
down,  "  forty  years  servant  to  Lord  Montague  and  his 
father,"  seems  to  have  leased  the  two-thirds  sequestered. 
He  complained  in  1655  that  his  rent  was  with  difficulty 
raised,  "  by  reason  of  the  low  price  of  corn  and  cattle." 4 
Mr.  William  Gage  of  Framfield5  and  Sir  Thomas  Gage  of 
Firle6  also  suffered  as  recusants.  Sir  Garrett  Kemp  of 
Slindon,  had  some  difficulty  in  rebutting  the  charge  of 
recusancy,  his  father  having  married  a  daughter  of  Sir 
Edward  Gage,  and  himself  a  daughter  of  Sir  John  Caryll, 
both  Catholics.  The  County  Committee  alleged  on  3ist 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1009  (see  also  post,  p.  294). 

2  Ibid.,  1602.  s  Ibid.,  920.  *  Ibid.,  2543-4. 
5  Ibid.,  2211.                   e  Ibid.,  3011. 


132      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

October  1644,  that  in  the  time  of  the  rebellion  he  sent  two 
horses  to  Chichester,  with  two  of  his  servants,  armed  with 
pistols  and  swords,  who  continued  there  about  three 
weeks,  and  rode  backwards  and  forwards  from  Slindon  to 
Chichester ;  and  further  that  he  was  "  a  reputed  Church 
Papist,  and  bred  up  all  his  children  Papists,"  and  that  he 
absented  himself  from  his  usual  place  of  abode  in  the 
county  by  the  space  of  two  years.  It  was  proved  on  his 
behalf,  that  he  was  not  a  Papist ;  and  that  his  children  had 
not  been  in  his  tuition  for  many  years,  the  youngest  being  at 
least  forty  years  old.  He  was  fined  at  one-sixth,  £2,931  icxr.1 
On  nth  June  1649,  Dr.  Wright  and  three  other  physicians 
certified  that  "  being  very  infirm  and  aged,  it  would  be 
efficacious  for  his  ailments  that  he  do  repair  to  the  Spa,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Spa  waters."  Three  days  afterwards  a 
pass  was  signed  by  Fairfax  for  Sir  Garrett  Kemp  and  his 
servants  to  go  beyond  seas,  for  the  above  purpose,  with  a 
proviso  that  he  should  carry  with  him  nothing  prohibited 
by  the  State.  His  son  Thomas,  who  "  went  into  Arundel 
Castle  when  held  against  the  Parliament,  but  never  bore 
arms,  nor  assisted  the  king's  party,"  was  fined  at  one-tenth, 
£230. 

Sir  John  Shelley,  of  Michelgrove,  a  "recusant  Papist," 
died  in  1641,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  grandson  Charles, 
then  three  years  old,  who  was  taken  abroad  by  his  grand- 
mother. In  1645  the  Committee  for  the  Advance  of  Money 
received  information  that  much  treasure,  plate,  money,  etc., 
belonging  to  the  late  Sir  John  Shelley,  a  recusant,  was 
walled  up  and  concealed  in  his  home  at  Michelgrove,  and 
made  an  order  that  it  be  sought  for  and  brought  away  and 
used  for  the  service  of  the  state,  with  leave  to  break  down 
walls,  and  break  open  or  dig  in  any  place  suspected.2  The 
same  Committee  was  informed  in  1649  that  Sir  Charles 
was  born  and  bred  up  in  the  Romish  religion  and  was  now 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1960. 

2  Cal.  Com.  for  Advance  of  Money,  2nd  April  1645. 


THE  ROYALIST  LANDLORDS  133 

beyond  the  seas.  His  estate  in  Sussex,  Kent,  and  Warwick- 
shire was  worth  £3,000  a  year,  and  Col.  James  Temple, 
M.P.,  held  it  as  bailiff  or  guardian,  but  had  rendered  no 
account  of  it  to  the  state.1  As  the  estate  was  not  sequestered, 
there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  reason  why  he  should  have 
done  so.  In  the  matter  of  a  certain  farm  sequestered  as 
having  belonged  to  Colonel  Henry  Shelley,  "  who  was  in 
the  wars,"  Colonel  Temple  represented  in  1650  that  Sir 
Charles  Shelley,  being  only  thirteen  years  could  not  be 
called  a  Papist,  as  none  were  Papists  under  sixteen,  that  he 
was  not  Popishly,  educated,  and  frequented  church.2  In 
1651,  Sir  Charles,  by  his  guardian,  petitioned  to  enjoy  the 
goods  formerly  sequestered  ;  it  appeared  that  they  were 
valued  at  £200,  and  consisted  of  linen,  bed-furniture> 
Turkey  work,  carpets  and  hangings,  and  at  the  beginning 
of  the  troubles  had  been  hidden  in  a  chimney  near  the 
kitchen.3  There  is  no  further  mention  of  any  plate. 

The  Committee  for  Advance  of  Money  which  sat  at 
Haberdashers'  Hall  seems  occasionally  to  have  overstepped 
its  proper  function  of  levying  a  tax  of  one-twentieth  on  real, 
and  one-fifth  on  personal  property  without  distinction  of 
party,  and  assumed  the  powers  of  the  Committee  for  Com- 
pounding. In  April  1645, an  information  was  laid  before  it  by 
Sir  Robert  Harlow,  concerning  John  Butt,  Thomas  Pierce, 
and  Edward  Tremblett,  all  of  "  Bozom,"  near  Chichester. 
It  was  alleged  that  in  December  1642,  the  King's  garrison 
being  at  Chichester,  Tremblett  and  Pierce  took  John  Mills, 
sent  by  the  militia  of  London  to  Sir  William  Waller,  as 
prisoner;  railed  at  him  as  a  Roundhead  carrying  letters  for 
Parliament  against  the  King ;  and  sent  for  some  Cavaliers  to 
secure  him  and  have  him  hanged  at  Chichester;  but  a  friend 
of  his  sent  to  Waller  for  a  party  to  redeem  him,  and  that 
party  arriving  first  he  escaped.  It  was  further  alleged  that 
all  three  were  still  in  arms  against  the  Parliament;  and  an 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Advance  of  Money,  2nd  November  1649. 
*  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  2370.  3  Ibid.)  2371. 


134     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

order  was  made  for  seizing  and  securing  their  estates.1  In 
December  1645, Thomas  Peirce  of  Bosham,  yeoman,  applied 
to  the  Committee  for  Compounding  to  compound  for  delin- 
quency, having  been  in  arms  against  the  Parliament  with 
Sir  E.  Ford  at  Chichester.  He  had  long  since  taken  the 
Covenant.  Fine  £20*  Edward  Tremlett,  of  Bosham,  was 
fined  £40  at  the  same  time.3 

Time  sometimes  works  strange  coincidences.  In  1650, 
Peter  Courthope  of  Isfield,  Sussex,  high-sheriff  of  the 
county,  petitioned  the  Committee  to  recognize  his  claim  to 
the  Manor  of  Lamborn  Hall,  in  Essex,  which  Sir  William 
Campion  of  Combwell,  in  Kent,  had  sold  to  him  for 
£1,700,  whereof  £1,400  or  £1,500  went  in  payment  of  his 
fine.  The  claim  was  recognized  in  1652  on  payment  of 
£8 1  .*  I n  1 65  2  Peter  Courthope  bought  the  estate  of  Danny, 
Sussex,  from  the  assignees  of  George  Goring,  Earl  of  Norwich. 
Henry  Campion,  grandson  of  Sir  William,  married  Barbara, 
daughter  and  heiress  of  Peter  Courthope,  of  Danny  (grand- 
son of  the  aforesaid  Peter  Courthope),  by  his  wife  Phila- 
delphia, daughter  of  Sir  John  Stapley,  Bart,  of  Patcham.6 

Sir  William  Campion  was  fined  £1,354  on  gth  October 
1646,  being  one-tenth  of  his  estate,  on  Borstall  Articles.6 
The  receipt  for  the  payment  of  half  this  fine,  here  repro- 
duced, is  in  the  possession  of  his  descendant,  Colonel 
Campion,  C.B.,  of  Combwell  and  Danny. 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Advance  of  Money,  544. 

2  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1063.  3  Ibid.,  1065. 
*  Ibid.,  1450.                s  Pedigree  of  Campion.   S.  A.  C.,  x,  34. 
6  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1450. 


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RECEIPT  FOR  K1NE  IMPOSED  ON  SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY 

BAD  as  was  the  plight  of  the  Royalist  gentry,  the  Royalist 
clergy  suffered  still  more  severely.  Thegentleman  might 
sell  or  mortgage  part  of  his  estate,  or  cut  his  timber  to  pay 
his  fine ;  but  the  clergyman,  deprived  of  his  cure,  not  only 
lost  his  livelihood,  but  frequently  was  unable  to  earn  it  in 
any  other  way.  The  Cathedral  Chapters  and  some  other  of 
the  more  important  clergy  very  soon  fell  into  the  clutch  of 
the  sequestrating  committees,  who,  not  content  with  strip- 
ping them  of  their  preferments,  laid  hands  on  their  private 
estates.  At  Chichester,  the  estate  of  the  Bishop,  Henry 
King,  was  sequestered,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  it  was 
ever  admitted  to  composition.  The  Dean,  Dr.  Bruno  Ryves, 
had  joined  the  King  at  Oxford  after  the  fall  of  Chicheste^ 
and  on  5th  December  1646  begged  to  compound  on  Oxford 
Articles  for  delinquency  in  being  there  when  it  was  sur- 
rendered. He  was  fined  at  one-tenth,  £20.  Being  required 
to  take  the  Covenant  and  the  Negative  Oath,  he  prayed 
exemption  on  the  ground  that  a  dispensation  from  both 
was  granted  to  all  included  in  Oxford  Articles.1  Dr.  William 
Cox,  the  precentor,  was  at  Exeter  when  it  fell,  and  was  fined 
on  Exeter  Articles  one-tenth,  £,169?  Dr.  Joseph  Henshaw, 
a  prebendary,  also  compounded  on  Exeter  Articles,  and 
was  fined  £177?  Dr.  William  Oughtred,  another  prebend- 
ary, a  Fellow  of  Eton,  and  an  eminent  mathematician,  is 

'  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1593.  2  Ibid.,  1299. 

3  Ibid.,  1366. 

135 


136     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

said  to  have  died  of  excess  of  joy  at  the  age  of  eighty-six, 
when  he  heard  of  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy.1  Thomas 
Hooke,  Clerk,  of  Chichester,  compounded  in  1649  for  de- 
linquency in  going  into  Oxford,  then  a  garrison  for  the 
King,  and  was  fined  at  one-third,  £14.0*  John  Edsawe, 
Clerk,  of  Chayley,  compounded  on  Oxford  Articles  and 
was  fined  at  one-tenth,  £4.0? 

Soon  after  the  outbreak  of  War,  on  7th  December  1642, 
the  Parliament  appointed  a  Committee  to  provide  benefices 
for  such  of  the  Puritan  clergy  as  had  been  driven  from  their 
livings  by  the  King's  forces.  This  Committee  in  its  first 
resolution  defined  its  duties  as  follows:  "To  consider  of 
the  fittest  way  for  the  relief  of  such  godly  and  well  affected 
ministers  as  have  been  plundered  and  likewise  to  consider 
what  malignant  persons  have  benefices  whose  livings  being 
sequestered  there  may  others  supply  their  cures  and  receive 
the  profits."  Six  months  later  it  assumed  the  further  power 
to  consider  informations  against  scandalous  ministers,  though 
no  malignancy  was  proved  against  them,  and  on  proof  of 
scandal  to  put  out  such  as  were  of  scandalous  life.  This 
Committee,  "  the  Committee  of  Plundered  Ministers  "  as  it 
was  called,  gradually  acquired  a  practical  supervision  of  the 
financial  side  of  ecclesiastical  affairs,  and  if  a  tithe  of  the 
allegations  against  it  are  true,  it  did  a  good  deal  of  plunder- 
ing on  its  own  account.4  At  first  Parliament  did  not  dele- 
gate all  control  of  such  matters  to  the  Committee.  In 
December  1642  the  inhabitants  of  Horsham  sent  up  a 
petition  asserting  that  one  Mr.  Conyers,  who  had  been  pre- 
sented to  that  parish  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
was  a  "  disserving "  man  and  unfit  for  the  place,  and  the 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  52.  -  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1972. 

3  Ibid.,  1568. 

4  The  Proceedings  of  this  Committee  are  contained  in  three  MS. 
books,  B.M.  Add.  MSS.  15669,  15670,  15671.    The  entries  relating  to 
Sussex  were  collected  by  Mr.  F.  G.  Sawyer  and  printed  in  S.  A.  C., 
xxx  and  xxxi. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY      137 

House  of  Lords  ordered  that  the  Archbishop  should  have 
notice  that  the  House  did  not  approve  of  the  presentation.1 
Before  the  Civil  War  broke  out  it  had  been  a  common 
practice  for  parishes  which  were  dissatisfied  with  the  minis- 
trations of  their  incumbents  to  maintain  lecturers  of  their 
own,  and  it  seems  that  these  lecturers  frequently  obtained 
the  livings  of  the  dispossessed  "  malignant "  clergy.  The 
inhabitants  of  Horsham  now  sent  a  further  petition  that 
Mr.  Chatfield,  "  a  godly  and  painful  preacher,"  their  own 
lecturer,  who  had  spent  his  time  and  taken  great  pains 
among  them,  should  be  appointed  in  Mr.  Conyer's  place. 
Parliament  thereupon  appointed  Mr.  Chatfield,  and  named 
a  Committee  of  the  inhabitants,  including  Thomas  Middle- 
ton,  Hall  Ravenscroft,  James  Gratwick,  Thomas  White 
and  others,  to  sequestrate  the  vicarage  and  pay  the  tithes 
to  him. 

The  Committee  of  Plundered  Ministers  was,  in  a  sense, 
a  complementary  body  to  the  Westminster  Assembly  of 
Divines,  established  by  Act  of  Parliament  in  October  1642 
with  the  object  of  reforming  the  Church  of  England  on  the 
lines  of  Presbyterianism.  The  Sussex  members  of  this 
Assembly  were  Dr.  Francis  Cheynell  of  Oxford,  after- 
wards Rector  of  Petworth,  Mr.  Benjamin  Pickering2  of 
East  Hoathley,  and  Mr.  Henry  Nye  of  Clapham.  The  last- 
named  did  not  appear,  and  John  Maynard,  Vicar  of  May- 
field,  was  added  by  Parliament.  The  two  bodies  seem  to 
have  worked  together  in-  the  task  of  filling  the  country 
vicarages  with  Puritan  incumbents,  and  in  Sussex  Dr.  Chey- 
nell was  particularly  active. 

1  House  of  Lords  MSS.  (Hist.   MSS.   Com.,  v),  61.    See  Hunt's 
History  of  Horsham,  p.  12. 

2  Mr.  Pickering  was  a  preacher  of  some  eminence.    He  received  the 
thanks  of  the   House   of  Commons  for  a  sermon  preached  at  St. 
Margaret's,  Westminster,  on  27th  November  1644 ;  and  it  was  ordered 
to  be  printed.    "  A  Firebrand  pluckt  out  of  the  burning.   By  Benjamin 
Pikering,   Minister  of  Gods  Word  at  Buckstead  in  Sussex;  and  a 
Member  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines.   London  1645." 


138      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

The  Central  Committee  appointed  local  committees  in 
various  counties  to  assist  it  in  its  work.  The  original  Sussex 
Committee  appears  to  have  consisted  of  twenty  members, 
all  laymen,  and  chiefly  Members  of  Parliament  for  the 
county  and  its  boroughs.  It  was  empowered  to  inquire  "  by 
the  oaths  of  twelve  lawful  men"  of  the  following  offences: 
"  Not  preaching  the  word  of  God  six  times  at  least  in  the 
space  of  one  whole  year  by  any  ecclesiastical  person  or 
persons  under  the  age  of  sixty  years,  having  cure  of  souls, 
and  not  being  thereunto  letted  by  sickness  or  imprison- 
ment; or  of  blasphemy,  wilful  and  corrupt  perjury,  and 
subordination  of  perjury,  fornication,  adultery,  common 
alehouse  or  tavern  haunting,  common  drunkenness,  common 
profane  swearing  and  cursing." 

The  county  committees  seem  to  have  been  subdivided, 
and  we  find  committees  sitting  at  Lewes,  Chichester, 
Battle,  and  Brambletye.  According  to  Walker  (Sufferings 
of  the  Clergy,  p.  118)  the  local  committees  consisted  of 
not  more  than  ten  or  less  than  five  persons,  who  each 
received  five  shillings  a  day  for  attendance.  They  were 
"  directed  to  take  depositions  of  witnesses  without  the 
accused  being  present,  but  if  he  desired  it  they  were  to  let 
him  have  a  copy  of  the  accusation  at  his  own  charge." 

It  was  inevitable  that  in  the  bitterness  of  the  struggle, 
most  bitter  of  course  on  the  religious  side,  much  hardship 
should  be  caused,  and  injustice  suffered  by  ministers  of 
both  parties.  Dr.  Cheynell  himself  asserts l  that  he  was 
driven  from  his  own  house  by  force  of  arms,  only  (as  the 
Cavaliers  confessed)  because  he  was  nominated  to  be  a 
member  of  the  Westminster  Assembly — not  a  very  in- 
sufficient reason,  one  would  suppose,  from  the  Cavalier 
point  of  view.  He  speaks  of  "the  visitation  of  Merton 
College,  the  denial  of  my  grace,  the  plundering  of  my  house 
and  little  library,"  and  he  boasts  "  I  have  not  yet  learnt 

1  Chillingworthi  Novissima. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY      139 

how  to  plunder  others  of  goods  or  living,  and  make  myself 
amends  by  force  of  arms.  I  will  not  take  a  living  which 
belonged  to  any  civil,  studious,  learned  Delinquent,  unless 
it  be  the  much  neglected  Commendam  of  some  Lordly 
Prelate  condemned  by  the  known  laws  of  the  land,  and  the 
highest  court  of  the  kingdom  for  some  offence  of  the  first 
magnitude."  In  the  rich  living  of  Petworth,  which  had  been 
previously  attached  to  the  bishopric  of  Chichester,  he  was 
fortunate  enough  to  find  an  agreeable  ministry  which  did 
not  violate  his  principles. 

It  was  some  slight  mitigation  of  the  lot  of  the  clergyman 
who  was  ejected  from  his  living  as  a  Royalist,  or  as  attached 
to  Episcopacy  or  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  was 
thus  deprived  at  one  sweep  of  his  livelihood,  that  a  fifth  of 
his  late  income  was  payable  to  his  wife  and  children  for 
their  support  by  the  incumbent  who  had  succeeded  him. 
This  fifth  was  often  grudgingly  paid,  and  the  payment 
could  only  be  enforced  by  an  appeal  to  the  Committee  of 
Plundered  Ministers,  or  its  local  deputy,  and  although  the 
Committee  seems  often  to  have  insisted  on  the  payment,  it 
sometimes  decided  otherwise  on  a  view  of  what  appear 
irrelevant  circumstances.  Thus  on  24th  May  1645,  the 
Committee  took  into  consideration  the  case  of  the  wife  of 
Mr.  Peckham,  whose  vicarage  of  Horsted  Parva  had  been 
sequestered;  and  it  having  appeared  that  she  had  shown 
contempt  of  the  sequestration  by  keeping  possession  of  the 
house  till  she  was  expelled  from  it,  and  had  "  committed 
much  wilful  spoil  upon  the  said  house";  and  further  that 
the  living  was  but  small,  and  that  Mr.  Peckham  practised 
physic  and  farmed  land  worth  £18  a  year,  the  Committee 
thought  fit  to  relieve  the  living  of  the  charge  of  one-fifth, 
and  discharged  Mr.  Bigge,  who  had  succeeded  Mr.  Peck- 
ham,  from  the  payment  thereof.1 

On  the  other  hand  Mrs.  Ballow,  wife  of  the  ejected  vicar 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxx,  1 20. 


140     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Seaford-cum-Sutton,  after  much  difficulty  and  expense 
obtained  an  order  from  the  Committee  in  London  requii- 
ing  Mr.  Saxby,  to  whom  the  living  was  sequestered,  to  pay 
the  fifth  part  to  her,  and  requesting  the  County  Committee 
to  set  out  and  apportion  the  same,  which  the  latter  accord- 
ingly did,  and  allotted  Mrs.  Ballow  £8  a  year.1 

In  spite  of  this  provision  the  families  of  the  ejected 
clergy  must  frequently  have  endured  great  suffering.  The 
quiver  was  too  often  full.  It  was  fortunate  for  Mr.  John 
Boulte,  who  was  inducted  to  the  vicarage  of  Eastbourne  in 
1648,  that  he  was  on  the  winning  side,  for  he  was  "blessed 
with  29  children  by  two  wives."2  Mr.  Halsey,  Rector  of 
East  Dean,  was  turned  out  of  his  living  "  on  a  pretence  of 
insufficiency,"  and  his  family  of  nine  children  were  only 
saved  from  starvation  by  the  fact  that  he  possessed  some 
small  property  in  London ;  notwithstanding  which,  a 
daughter  of  his  complained  to  a  gentleman  that  she  was 
glad  to  feed  on  half  an  egg.  "  The  poor  man  came  with 
tears  in  his  eyes  and  fell  on  his  knees  to  Cheynell  (that 
monstrous  composition  and  villain)  and  desired  the  favour 
of  him  to  let  him  teach  an  English  school  at  a  penny  a 
week  for  each  child  for  the  support  of  his  family ;  but  was 
by  the  monster  denied  so  reasonable  a  request." 3 

Cheynell  was  the  b$te  noire  of  the  Royalist  clergy,  and 
post-Restoration  references  to  him  must  be  accepted  with 
caution.  That  he  left  no  stone  unturned  to  secure  the  most 
important  vicarages  for  his  own  adherents  is  no  doubt  true, 
but  for  the  charges  of  dishonesty  and  conspiracy  brought 
against  him  there  is  probably  no  foundation.  Hoadley,  a 
great  Whig  bishop  of  the  eighteenth  century,  said  of  him : 
"  He  was  exactly  orthodox,  and  as  pious,  honest,  and  charit- 
able as  his  bigotry  would  permit." 4 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxx,  132. 

2  Ibid.,  xxix,  206.    See  also  iv,  267. 

3  Walker's  MSS.,  Bodleian  Library. 

4  Neal,  History  of  the  Puritans,  iv,  395. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY      141 

Thus  the  account  of  the  ejection  of  Mr.  Apsley,  Rector 
of  Pulborough,  contained  in  a  letter  of  Mr.  Newcomb,  a 
later  Rector,1  seems  somewhat  exaggerated.  It  is  stated 
that  Dr.  Cheynell,  "  sole  judge  in  all  matters  ecclesiastical," 
sent  for  and  commanded  him  to  give  an  account  of  his 
election  to  himself  and  "  four  more  elders  " ;  Mr.  Apsley, 
knowing  their  design,  framed  such  an  answer  that  they  had 
nothing  to  object  against  him,  and  so  for  a  time  dismissed 
him.  But  his  living  being  worth  £4.00  a  year,  Cheynell  was 
resolved  to  turn  him  out  on  some  pretext  or  other.  Having 
received  information  that  Mr.  Apsley  had  been  seen  in  a 
public  ale-house  at  Stopham  bridge,  they  summoned  him  a 
second  time  on  the  accusation  of  being  a  common  drinker 
and  a  scandalous  liver,  and  without  being  permitted  to 
make  any  answer,  he  was  thrown  out  of  his  living  to  the 
almost  utter  ruin  of  his  family.  This  story,  written  some 
sixty  years  after  the  event,  does  not  carry  the  weight  of 
contemporary  evidence. 

We  do  not  often  hear  of  personal  violence  to  the  clergy, 
but  Mr.  Oliver  Whitby,  who  acted  as  curate  to  the  Bishop 
of  Chichester  at  Petworth,  is  an  exception.  According  to 
Walker,2  "  being  a  loyalist  he  was  often  in  danger  of  his  life 
by  the  fanatics,  one  of  whom  shot  at  him  with  a  pistol 
while  he  was  preaching  in  Petworth  pulpit,  but  missed  him ; 
upon  which  to  avoid  further  danger  he  escaped  to  a  poor 
house  nigh  Petworth,  and  lived  there  six  months  privately. 
But  being  discovered  by  the  rebels,  he  was  forced  to  take 
his  lodging  in  a  hollow  tree,  which  the  old  woman  had 
shewed  him,  and  there  fed  by  her  a  long  time  on  pretence 
of  her  going  to  gather  wood.  He  lived  in  great  want  until 
the  Restoration,  and  was  then  preferred  in  Chichester 
Church." 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  some  of  the  dispossessed 
clergy  richly  deserved  their  fate.  In  his  Century  of 

1  Walker's  MSS.,  iii,  875-6. 

2  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  App.,  p.  424. 


142      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Malignant  Priests,1  Colonel  John  White  included  the  in- 
cumbents of  Horsted  Parva,  Dallington,  Ardingley,  Arun- 
del,  Cliffe,  Storrington,  East  Grinstead,  and  Arlington. 
Allowing  for  the  exaggeration  of  partisan  animus,  there 
was  probably  a  serious  case  against  each  of  them,  and  the 
evidence  is  at  any  rate  contemporary.  "  The  benefice  of 
John  Peckham,  rector  of  the  Parish  Church  of  Horsted 
Parva  in  the  County  of  Sussex,  who  giveth  out  that  he  is 
the  King's  Chaplain,  is  sequestered,  for  that  he  hath  been 
very  negligent  in  his  cure,  absenting  himself  from  his  par- 
ishioners, sometimes  a  whole  month  together,  without 
leaving  any  to  officiate  for  him,  and  hath  refused  to  admin- 
ister the  Lord's  Supper  to  those  of  his  Parish  that  would 
not  come  up  to  the  rails,  and  is  a  common  drunkard,  and 
notorious  adulterer  and  unclean  person  .  .  .,  and  hath  ex- 
pressed great  malignity  against  the  Parliament  and  pro- 
ceedings thereof,  and  hath  affirmed  publickly  that  a  man 
might  live  in  murder,  adultery  and  other  gross  sins  from 
day  to  day,  and  yet  be  a  true  penitent  person."  At  Ard- 
ingley Richard  Taunton's  benefice  was  sequestered  "  for 
that  he  is  a  common  drunkard  and  ale-house  haunter,  and 

1  "The  first  Century  of  Scandalous  Malignant  Priests  made  and 
admitted  into  benefices  by  the  Prelates  in  whose  hands  the  ordination 
of  ministers  and  the  government  of  the  Church  hath  been ;  or  a  narra- 
tion of  the  causes  for  which  the  Parliament  hath  ordered  the  seques- 
tration of  the  benefices  of  several  ministers  complained  of  before  them, 
for  vitiousness  of  life,  errors  in  doctrines  contrary  to  the  articles  of 
our  religion,  and  for  practising  and  pressing  superstitious  innovations 
against  the  law,  and  for  malignancy  against  the  Parliament.  Ordered 
to  be  printed  by  the  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  Nov. 
1643."  Colonel  John  White,  known  as  "Century  White"  was  Chair- 
man of  the  Committee  to  inquire  into  the  immoralities  of  the  Clergy. 
An  inscription  on  his  tombstone  in  the  Temple  states : 

"  Here  lies  a  John,  a  burning  shining  light, 
Whose  name  life  actions  all  alike  were  white." 

He  was  the  grandfather  of  Susannah,  mother  of  John  and  Charles 
Wesley. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY      143 

in  his  sermons  hath  wished,  that  every  knee  might  rot  that 
would  not  bow  at  the  name  of  Jesus." l  At  East  Grinstead 
the  benefice  of  Richard  Goffe  was  sequestered  "  for  that  he 
is  a  common  haunter  of  taverns  and  alehouses,  a  common 
swearer  of  bloody  oaths,  and  singer  of  bawdy  songs  and 
often  drunk,  and  keepeth  company  with  papists  and  scan- 
dalous persons,  and  hath  confessed  that  he  chiefly  studied 
popish  authors,  highly  commended  Queen  Mary's  time,  and 
disparaged  Queen  Elizabeth's,  as  an  enemy  to  learning, 
and  hoped  to  see  the  time  again  that  there  should  be  no 
Bible  in  men's  houses.  And  hath  openly  preached  that  such 
as  go  to  other  parish  churches  than  their  own  are  in  the 
state  of  damnation,  and  that  after  the  bread  and  wine  of 
the  sacrament  is  consecrated  it  is  no  more  bread  and  wine 
but  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  And  in  a  funeral  sermon 
at  the  burial  of  a  woman  said  that  she  being  regenerated 
in  baptism  did  live  and  die  without  sin ;  and  hath  expressed 
great  malignity  against  the  Parliament,  saying  that  he 
hoped  to  see  it  confounded,  and  that  he  cared  not  a  fig  for 
the  Parliament." 2  It  may  be,  as  suggested  by  Walker,3 
that  the  last  remark  was  his  chief  offence. 

The  sequestrating  committee  was  on  less  sure  ground 
when  it  came  to  consider  accusations  of  "  inadequacy."  Mr. 
John  Nutt's  living  of  Bexhill  was  sequestrated  for  that  he 
lived  "  wholly  non-resident  to  the  church  and  in  his  ab- 
sence substituted  to  officiate  for  him  scandalous  and  un- 
worthy curates."  4  Sometimes  the  charge  recoiled  on  those 
who  brought  it.  The  aged  Dr.  Aquila  Cruso,  having  lost 
his  Prebendary  stall  in  Chichester  Cathedral,  "  by  the  in- 
iquitie  of  those  times  in  the  common  ship-wreck  of  the 
Church,"  was  visited  in  his  rectory  of  Sutton,  near  Pet- 
worth,  by  three  "  noted  triers  "  to  examine  his  sufficiency 
They  begged  him  to  give  an  account  of  his  faith  in  writing, 

1  Century  of  Malignant  Priests,  43. 

2  Ibid.,  88.  3  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  ii,  257. 
4  S.  A.  C.,  xxx,  1 17. 


144     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

whereupon  he  wrote  it  in  Greek  and  Hebrew,  which  none 
of  them  could  understand.  "  It  was  thought  they  suffered 
him  to  continue  in  his  living,  because  he  was  then  about 
seventy  years  of  age,  and  could  not  live  much  longer. 
Neither  could  they  with  any  colour  of  truth  fix  a  charge  of 
insufficiency  upon  him,  whose  faith  soared  in  a  sphere 
above  their  capacity." l  Dr.  Cruso  disappointed  his  enemies 
by  living  until  November  1660. 

The  most  important  case  in  this  connection  is  that  of 
Mr.  John  Large,  Rector  of  Rotherfield.  The  benefice  was 
worth  £300  a  year,2  and  it  was  a  joke  of  the  time  that  Mr. 
Large  was  ejected  not  on  account  of  his  bad  life,  but  for 
his  good  living.  It  was  alleged  afterwards  that  the  proceed- 
ings against  him  were  the  result  of  a  conspiracy  between 
Dr.  Cheynell  and  one  Vintner,  who  were  overheard  to  say 
that  as  they  could  not  sequester  Mr.  Large  for  immorality 
they  would  do  so  for  insufficiency.  Mr.  Vintner  seems  to 
have  emulated  the  rapid  conversion  of  the  Vicar  of  Bray. 
In  1651  he  was  inducted  to  the  living  of  Cowfold,3  the 
patron  being  the  "  Hon.  Col.  Jn.  Downes  Esq."  *  At  the 
Restoration  he  is  reported  to  have  preached  as  follows :  "  It 
is  said  the  Common  Prayer  must  be  read  again  in  our 
churches,  but  I  do  assure  you  that  if  there  was  a  gallows 
erected  in  that  place,  and  the  Common  Prayer  book  laid  in 
this  desk,  I  would  choose  to  be  trussed  up  on  that  gallows 
before  ever  I  would  read  the  Common  Prayer."  But  he 
thought  better  of  it,  and  conformed.  In  1673  he  obtained 
the  "  fat  benefice  "  of  Rotherfield,  "  where  in  his  old  age  in 
King  James  II's  reign  he  was  preparing  for  another  turn, 
even  to  Rome  itself,  if  times  had  held,  and  previous  to  it 

1  Walker's  MSS. 

2  "As  late  as  1675  tne  rector  of  Rotherfield  kept  a  woodward  or 
keeper  for  the  366  acres  of  wood  pertaining  to  the  rectorial  manor  " 
(Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  324). 

3  S.  A.  C.,  xxxi,  194. 

4  "  Recruiter,"  M.P.  for  Arundel,  a  regicide. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY      145 

began  to  give  out  he  never  knew  before  that  the  papists 
had  such  good  reasons  for  their  religion." l 

Mr.  Large  himself  alleged  in  his  defence  that  the  articles 
of  accusation  were  presented  against  him  "  not  so  much 
through  his  demerits  as  through  a  secret  plot  and  combina- 
tion of  John  Russell,  Edward  Russell  and  John  Calle,  who 
having  a  minister  to  their  kinsman  wanting  a  living  (brother 
unto  two  of  them  and  nephew  to  the  third)  have  used  his 
help  and  assistance  in  drawing  up  these  articles  against 
him."  In  his  long  and  interesting  defence2  he  replies 
seriatim  to  the  charges  brought  against  him.  This  valuable 
document,  which  affords  a  remarkable  picture  of  the  re- 
ligious life  of  the  time,  may  be  summarized  as  follows: 

(1)  He   was  presented  to    the    living    by  a  citizen  of 
London,  to  whom  the  advowson  had  been  lawfully  passed 
long  previously  by  Lord   Abergavenny;    he  denied   any 
intimate  correspondence  with  Papists,  whose  errors  he  was 
known  to  hate,  and  to  refute  in  his  sermons  as  occasion 
offered;    the  like  also    concerning    scandalous    ministers, 
whose  company  he  neither  enjoyed  nor  desired. 

(2)  He  had  constantly  had  two  sermons  preached  by 
himself  or  his  curate  every  Lord's  day,  except  between 
November  and  February.    In  the  summer  his  accusers  had 
seldom  or  never  attended  in  the  afternoon  to   hear  the 
sermon.    In  the  shortest  days  of  winter  he  had  usually 
preached  but  once  a  day;  not  (as  his  accusers  would  sug- 
gest) to  spare  his  own  pains,  but  for  the  convenience  of  his 
parishioners,  many  of  whom  dwelt  three  or  four  miles  or 
more  from  the  church,  and  in  those  very  short  days  were 
unable  to  come  thither  again  in  the  afternoon.    At  those 
times  therefore  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  joining  both  his 
sermons  for  the  day  together,  and  seldom  or  never  preached 
for  less  than  two  hours,  so  that  those  who  dwelt  far  off 
might  have  the  benefit  of  the  whole  day's  exercise  as  well 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxxi,  185.  2  Printed  in  S.  A.  C.,  xxxi,  173-7. 

L 


146     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

as  the  others.  Yet  notwithstanding  this  "  double  taste  "  in 
the  morning,  whenever  he  had  seen  any  considerable  num- 
ber at  church  in  the  afternoon,  he  had  not  omitted  to 
preach  then  also.  And  in  his  sermons  he  had  delivered 
nothing  but  sound  and  orthodox  doctrine,  and  that  also  in 
a  manner  suited  to  the  capacities  of  the  people,  who  all 
(except  his  accusers)  generally  professed  to  have  derived 
no  small  comfort  and  edification  thereby. 

(3)  The  monthly  fasts  had  ever  been  solemnly  observed 
by  him ;  but  he  had  usually  delivered  all  his  meditations 
for  the  day  together,  and  so  preached  longer  in  the  fore- 
noons, the  reason  being  that  in  the  morning  he  found  him- 
self more  fresh  and  able  to  perform  a  double  exercise,  than 
to  reserve  part  till  the  afternoon,  when  through  fasting  all 
day  he  had  frequently  found  himself  faint  and  feeble. 

(4)  He  had  kept  all  days  appointed  by  Order  of  Parlia- 
ment, except  one  thanksgiving  of  which  he  never  knew  or 
heard  till  the  day  was  past. 

(5)  No  warrant  or  other  matter  sent  by  the  Parliament 
and  directed  to  be  read  by  the  minister  had  ever  been  left 
unpublished.    He  had  ever  been  forward,  both  by  his  ready 
contribution  to  all  taxes  and  by  his  careful  furnishing  of 
those  arms  wherewith  he  was  charged,  to  do  his  best  en- 
deavour for  the  safety  of  the  county  and  the  kingdom ;  and 
he  had  advised  others  to  do  the  same. 

(6)  The  unjust  aspersion  that  he  was  a   neuter  or    a 
"  close  enemy "  to  the  State  was  only  the   uncharitable 
judgement  of  his  accusers.    He  had  produced  a  certificate 
and  testimonial  signed  by  over  two  hundred  of  the  chief 
inhabitants,  there  being  but  few  more  householders  in  the 
parish.    He  had  striven  to  live  peaceably  with  all  men,  and 
had    endeavoured    often    to    gain    the    friendship   of  his 
accusers, 

(7)  In  addition  to  the  solemn  taking  and  giving  of  the 
Covenant,  as  attested  in  the  above-mentioned  testimonial, 
he  had  publicly  read  the  Covenant  and  the  Exhortation 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY      147 

and  obtained  the  signatures  of  the  whole  parish  there- 
unto. 

(8)  In  his  most  secret  desires  he  had  ever  been  a  hearty 
well  wisher  to  Reformation,  but  had  been  fearful  of  him- 
self to  innovate  or  alter  anything  established;  any  orders 
from  the  Parliament  or  others  in  authority  he  would  be  one 
of  the  first  and  forwardest  to  observe. 

(9)  He  had  permitted  Mr.  Goffe  of  East  Grinstead  to 
preach  in  his  parish.    Mr.  Goffe  was  not  at  that  time  se- 
questered, and  he  did  not  know  him  to  be  obnoxious  or 
offensive  to  any  one. 

(10)  He  had  not  himself  appointed  his  Curate,  and  until 
this  accusation  he  had  no  complaint  concerning  him. 

Mr.  Large's  defence  seems  to  have  availed  him  nothing. 
He  was  further  accused  of  "being  a  profane  Sabbath- 
breaker  in  collecting  tithes  on  the  Lord's  day,  and  of 
being  superstitiously  inclined  for  breaking  a  cake  over  a 
bride's  head,"  and  was  sequestrated.1 

The  Puritans  were  engaged  in  the  endeavour  to  con- 
struct a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  In  such  a  revolution, 
as  in  actual  warfare,  injustice  may  be  done,  and  hardship 
is  inevitably  caused  to  innocent  individuals.  But  it  is  im- 
possible to-day  to  form  a  satisfying  judgement  on  such  a 
case  as  that  of  Mr.  Large.  The  very  fervour  with  which 
post-Restoration  parsons  wrote 2  of  the  excellence  of  his 
character,  the  base  intrigues  of  his  accusers,  and  the  mer- 
cenary motives  of  his  judges,  has  a  suspicious  ring.  It  sug- 
gests that  perhaps  Mr.  Large  was  not  so  very  earnest  a 
friend  of  the  Parliament  he  professed  to  serve,  and  that 
Cheynell  may  have  been  perfectly  honest  in  his  efforts  to 
get  rid  of  a  secret  enemy.  If  Cheynell's  methods  were 
devious  (there  is  no  real  evidence  that  they  were),  that 
would  be  nothing  new  in  the  history  of  religious  bigotry. 

We  have  drifted  so  far  from  the  ideal  of  the  English 

1  Walker,  Sufferings,  ii,  279. 

2  Walker's  MSS. ;  S.  A.  C.,  xxxi,  178-185. 


148      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Puritans — "  a  practical  world  based  on  Belief  in  God,  such 
as  many  centuries  had  seen  before,  but  as  never  any  cen- 
tury since  has  been  privileged  to  see  " l — we  comprehend  so 
little  of  their  ways  of  thought,  that  the  inclination  of  man- 
kind to  distrust  and  dislike  what  it  does  not  understand 
asserts  itself  continually.  We  have  been  trained  in  a  repug- 
nance towards  the  habitual  expression  of  the  facts  of  the 
world  in  the  terms  of  religion,  and  this  repugnance  tends 
to  warp  our  historical  judgement  of  those  who  used  no  other 
language.  We  may  do  well  to  bear  in  mind  Carlyle's  ad- 
vice, "  by  no  means  to  credit  the  wide-spread  report  that 
these  seventeenth-century  Puritans  were  superstitious  crack- 
brained  persons ;  given  up  to  enthusiasm,  the  most  part  of 
them ;  the  minor  ruling  part  being  cunning  men,  who  knew 
how  to  assume  the  dialect  of  the  others,  and  thereby,  as 
skilful  Macchiavels,  to  dupe  them.  This  is  a  wide-spread 
report;  but  an  untrue  one." 

It  was  not  only  at  the  hands  of  the  Committee  of  Plun- 
dered Ministers  that  the  clergy  of  Royalist  and  Episcopalian 
sympathies  suffered.  As  in  the  counties  which  stood  to  the 
King,  and  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  the  Puritan  clergy 
were  driven  from  their  livings  and  employments,  which 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  prime  occasion  of  the  Committee's 
appointment;  so  in  Puritan  Sussex  an  unsympathetic 
soldiery  was  disposed  to  make  short  work  of  "  malignant " 
ministers.  A  Royalist  account  of  certain  proceedings  at 
Hastings  of  this  nature  has  come  down  to  us,  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  its  statements  are,  in  the  main, 
otherwise  than  true.  It  is  related 2  that  on  the  morning  of 
Sunday,  9th  July  1643,  in  time  of  divine  service,  Colonel 
Morley,  described  by  the  narrator  as  "  the  crooked  rebel  of 
Sussex,"  proceeded  towards  Hastings.  Mr.  Hinson,  the 
curate  of  All  Saints',  was  informed  of  his  coming,  and 
being  aware  that  one  end  of  the  Colonel's  Sabbath-day's 

1  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  Intro.,  v. 
-  Mercurius  Rusticus,  p.  141. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  CLERGY      149 

journey  was  to  apprehend  him,  broke  off  divine  service  in 
the  midst,  and  fled  into  a  neighbouring  wood  to  hide  him- 
self. The  Colonel  occupied  the  town  with  his  body  of 
horse,  secured  the  gates,  and  summoned  the  mayor  and 
jurats.  He  demanded  that  all  arms  in  the  town  should  be 
given  up  to  him,  and  having  procured  a  waggon  from  one 
of  the  jurats,  Fray  by  name,  sent  them  away  to  Battle. 
That  night  some  of  the  soldiers  lay  in  Mr.  Hinson's  church, 
and  one  Wicker,  a  common  soldier,  got  up  into  the  pulpit 
and  preached  to  his  fellows.  To  show  the  fruits  of  his 
doctrine,  either  the  preacher  or  one  of  his  auditors  stole 
the  surplice.  The  parish  clerk  complained  of  this  theft  to 
their  Captain,  Richard  Cockeram  of  Rye,  but  all  the 
answer  he  got  was :  "  Do  not  you  think  he  loves  a  smock 
as  well  as  you?" 

Colonel  Morley  now  levied  a  money  contribution  from 
the  townsmen,  Mr.  Car,  the  parson  of  St.  Clement's,  and 
Mr.  Hinson  being  particularly  specified.  Mr.  Car  was  not 
at  home,  having  fled  at  the  news  of  Morley's  approach,  but 
hearing  of  his  departure  for  Battle,  and  thinking  the  storm 
to  be  now  blown  over,  he  returned,  and  narrowly  escaped 
arrest  by  Morley's  agents.  Mr.  Hinson  was  less  fortunate. 
Returning  on  Tuesday,  he  was  arrested  and  confined  in 
the  Town  Hall,  where  his  friends  did  not  dare  to  visit  him 
for  fear  of  being  imprisoned  themselves.  A  maid-servant* 
who  was  accused  of  having  carried  letters  from  him,  denied 
having  done  so;  whereupon  she  was  told  by  one  Barlow, 
"  a  factious  schismatic,  who  because  heretofore  his  neigh- 
bours of  Hastings  refused  to  concur  with  him  in  petitioning 
against  Episcopacy,  joined  and  subscribed  with  those  of 
Rye,"  that  she  deserved  to  be  put  into  the  Ducking-house, 
a  prison  for  women,  for  denying  it.  Next  day  Mr.  Hinson 
was  removed  to  the  common  gaol,  and  locked  up  in  a  most 
loathsome  place,  where  there  was  but  one  short  bench,  and 
no  company  but  a  tinker.  The  tinker  was  "  none  of  the 
jovialest,"  but  a  stubborn,  sullen  fellow,  who,  pleading 


150     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

seniority  in  the  place,  took  possession  of  the  bench,  and 
"  most  unsociably  kept  it  all  night."  After  three  weeks' 
imprisonment,  on  the  intercession  of  Master  Besanno,  a 
Counsellor-at-Law,  Mr.  Hinson  was  sent  up  to  London 
under  a  strong  guard,  whence  he  escaped  to  Oxford,  and 
put  himself  under  the  King's  protection. 


SIR  WILLIAM  WALLER. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  CLUBMEN 

TO  return  to  Arundel.  On  the  very  day  that  Waller 
took  possession  of  the  castle,  a  large  Spanish  vessel, 
the  St.  James  of  Dunkirk,  was  stranded  at  Heene,  "  near 
Arundel."  Heene  is  now  a  western  suburb  of  Worthing, 
and  is  distant  from  Arundel  about  ten  miles.  It  appeared 
that  she  had  been  chased  by  some  Dutch  men-of-war,  and, 
to  avoid  capture,  had  tried  to  make  either  for  the  river 
Arun  or  the  port  of  Shoreham.  One  account  says  that  she 
actually  entered  the  Arun,  and  took  the  ground  within  half 
a  mile  of  Arundel  Castle ; l  another  that  she  lay  "  at  a 
place  called  Shoarum";2  but  these  statements  were  prob- 
ably due  to  the  imagination  of  journalists  in  London,  who 
did  not  know  where  Heene  was.  Waller  promptly  took 
possession  of  the  ship,  and  went  on  board  himself.  He 
reported  the  matter  in  a  letter  to  the  House,  written  at 
Broadwater,  close  to  Heene,  on  8th  January,  and  asked  for 
directions.3  The  Sf.  James  mounted  24  brass  guns,  and 
contained  100  barrels  of  powder,  and  2,000  arms,  supposed 
to  be  for  the  use  of  "  the  English-Irish  that  make  havoc  in 
Cheshire,"  together  with  a  great  quantity  of  linen  cloth. 
Several  Cavalier  officers  and  persons  of  quality  were  on 

'  Mercurius  Civicus,  nth  January  1644.  This  error  is  copied  by 
Mr.  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  and  by  Mr.  Hillier,  The  Sieges 
of  Arundel  Castle;  even  by  Mr.  Blaauw,  S.  A.  C.,  v. 

1  The  True  Informer,  I3th  January  1644. 

3  House  of  Commons  Journals,  loth  January  1644. 


152      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

board.  The  value  of  the  ship  and  cargo  was  estimated 
to  be  £50,000  at  least.1  In  reply  to  Waller's  letter,  the 
House  ordered  him  to  secure  the  ship ;  that  the  goods  in 
her  should  be  safely  stored  in  Arundel  Castle,  and  none  of 
them  embezzled  or  disposed  of  until  it  be  known  whether 
she  were  prize;  that  the  soldiers  be  assured  that  if  she 
proved  prize  they  should  receive  a  reward  out  of  her;  that 
inventories  of  her  lading  should  be  made  and  sent  up  to 
the  Court  of  Admiralty  and  to  the  House. 

This  reply  was  no  doubt  a  disappointment  to  Waller, 
who  then  wrote  to  the  House  setting  forth  the  condition  of 
his  army  and  his  prisoners,  and  requesting  that  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  goods  in  the  Dunkirk  ship  should  be  applied 
to  pay  the  arrears  due  to  his  soldiers.  But  the  House 
ordered  that  the  goods  should  be  re- shipped,  and  the  vessel 
brought  round  to  London ;  and  that  the  Committee  of  the 
Navy,  and  the  judge  of  the  Court  of  Admiralty  do  take  care 
for  the  speedy  dispatch  of  the  business.  A  letter  was  sent  to 
Waller  thanking  him  for  his  care  in  the  matter.2 

But  there  was  no  more  "  speedy  dispatch  "  than  is  usual 
in  such  cases.  A  month  later  Messrs.  Maurice  Thompson 
and  Co.  laid  an  arrest  on  the  ship  "  for  reparation  to  be 
made  to  them  for  damages  sustained  by  the  Dunkirkers." s 
In  August  the  House  considered  the  matter,  and  also  a 
representation  from  the  Spanish  Ambassador  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  it  was  referred  to  the  Committee  of  the  Navy  to 
decide  what  allowance  should  be  made  to  Sir  William 
Waller's  soldiers  for  salvage  and  conservation  of  the  ship 
and  goods.4  The  result  was  that  a  sum  of  £4,000  was 
awarded  to  Sir  William  Waller  and  his  forces,  and  the  ship 
and  her  cargo  were  handed  over  to  the  Spanish  Ambassador.3 
Waller's  own  share  of  the  salvage  was  £700,  and  "  a  little 

1  The  Kingdom's  Weekly  Intelligencer,  i6th  February  1644. 

-  House  of  Commons  Journals,  i$th  January  1644. 
3  Ibid.,  loth  February  1644. 

*  Ibid.,  22nd  August  1644.  5  Ibid.,  4th  October  1644. 


THE  CLUBMEN  153 

painted  cabinet  and  some  toys,  worth  £12  or  £14."  were 
presented  to  his  wife  by  some  of  the  merchants  owning  the 
cargo,  as  a  token  of  their  thankfulness  for  the  care  he  had 
taken  to  preserve  their  goods.1  It  was  no  doubt  only  the 
presence  of  Waller's  army  which  had  saved  the  vessel  from 
plunder.  Not  many  years  before,  similar  wrecks  had 
occurred,  as  related  in  letters  of  Sir  W.  Covert. 

November  1629.  "  From  Slaugham.  A  Dunkirk  ship 
was  driven  ashore  at  Worthing  by  the  States  men-of-war, 
the  crew  of  66  were  saved,  but  the  country  people  accord- 
ing to  their  inhuman  custom  had  seized  the  goods  and 
spoilt  the  ship." 

February  1630.  "From  Slaugham  to  the  Lords  Lieu- 
tenant, the  Earls  of  Arundel  and  Dorset.  Another  ship  of 
Dunkirk  has  been  chased  on  shore  at  Brighthelmstone,  the 
inhabitants  have  saved  the  ordnance,  and  ask  to  keep 
them."  * 

Fifty  years  later  the  Sussex  attitude  towards  wrecks  was 
satirized  by  Congreve: 

As  Sussex  men,  that  dwell  upon  the  shore, 
Look  out  when  storms  arise  and  billows  roar, 
Devoutly  praying  with  uplifted  hands, 
That  some  well-laden  ship  may  strike  the  sands, 
To  whose  rich  cargo  they  may  make  pretence 
And  fatten  on  the  spoils  of  Providence."  3 

Great  scandal  was  caused  among  earnest  Puritans  by 
some  of  the  pictures  found  in  the  St.  James.  A  large  pic- 
ture of  the  betrothal  of  St.  Ursula,  painted  for  the  church 
of  Sta.  Anna  at  Seville,  was  considered  to  have  a  political 
import.  On  5th  June  1644,  Colonel  Herbert  Morley  wrote 
from  Arundel  to  the  Speaker:  "  Amongst  the  goods  taken 
from  the  Dunkirk  ships  we  have  found  certain  pictures 
which  contain  most  gross  idolatry;  upon  one,  the  Trinity 

1  Waller's  Vindication.  2  S.  A.  C.,  xlviii,  1 5. 

:!  Epilogue  to  The  Mourning  Bride. 


154     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

pictured  in  monstrous  shapes  like  giants;  upon  another  is 
painted  the  Virgin  Mary  as  sitting  in  heaven  with  her  babe 
in  her  arms,  underneath  is  the  Pope,  on  whose  left  hand 
stands  our  King  perfectly  limned  and  completely  armed, 
with  his  cavaliers  attending  him ;  on  the  Pope's  right  hand 
stands  the  Queen,  accompanied  with  her  ladies;  the  King 
tenders  his  sceptre  to  the  Queen,  she  accepts  it  not,  but 
directs  it  to  be  delivered  to  the  Pope.  This  picture  was 
intended  to  be  set  up  in  the  chief  church  of  Seville,  in 
Spain,  as  appears  by  the  direction  on  the  outside  of  the 
box  in  which  it  is  enclosed.  I  look  upon  this  picture  as  an 
hieroglyphic  of  the  causes  and  intents  of  our  present 
troubles,  and  the  opinion  of  the  neighbouring  nations  con- 
cerning them,  and  if  the  House  please  to  command  the 
picture  to  London,  and  there  permit  it  to  the  public  view, 
I  conceive  'twould  very  much  convince  the  malignants,  and 
open  the  eyes  of  all  that  are  not  wilfully  blind." l 

The  picture  was  sent  up  to  London,  as  Morley  suggested, 
and  exhibited  in  the  Star  Chamber.  A  rather  ridiculous 
controversy  of  pamphleteers  arose  as  to  its  significance,  in 
which  the  Royalist  side  had  distinctly  the  best.  At  Oxford, 
on  8th  July  1644,  was  published  a  pamphlet  entitled  The 
Sea-Gull,  or  the  new  apparition  in  the  Star-Chamber  at 
Westminster.  Being  a  true  and  accurate  description  of  a 
large  picture,  exposed  to  public  view,  lively  representing 
the  story  of  Conanus  and  Ursula  (taken  out  of  the  Golden 
Legend)  most  grossely  mistaken  for  His  Majesties  tendring 
the  Scepter  of  his  Kingdomes  into  the  hands  of  the  Queene 
and  Pope.2  The  writer  tells  at  some  length  the  story  of 
Conanus  and  Ursula,  and  urges  that  the  picture  was  meant 
to  represent  their  affiancing.  "  Thousands,"  he  says,  "  have 
already  swallowed  this  sea-gull  .  .  .  the  picture  itself  was 
made  by  one  Gerarde  de  la  Valle  at  Antwerp,  as  is  exprest 
in  the  bottom  thereof,  and  intended  to  be  set  up  in  Saint 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  178. 

2  B.M.,  Thomason  tracts:  pressmark  E.  54  (4). 


THE  CLUBMEN  155 

Anne's  Church  in  Seville  in  Spain,  as  appears  by  the  super- 
scription (upon  the  wooden  case  wherein  this  picture  drawn 
on  cloth  was  rolled  up,  when  it  was  taken  near  Arundel 
Haven  about  Christmas  last,  in  a  ship  belonging  to  one 
Devoes,  a  merchant  in  Flanders).  In  which  church,  and 
the  like  hallowed  places,  no  pictures,  or  images  of  the  living, 
but  only  of  departed  saints  canonized  are  hanged  up.  Unto 
which  Romanists  perform  an  inferior  kind  of  religious 
worship. 

"  Spectatum  admissi  risum  teneatis  amici  ?" 

This  argument  might  fitly  have  been  considered  un- 
answerable; but  it  provoked  a  rather  feeble  rejoinder: 
The  Sussex  picture,  or  an  Answer  to  the  Sea-gull. 
London  printed  by  F.  N.  July  29  1644.*  The  title  is 
adorned  with  a  rude  cut  of  the  three  chief  figures  of  the 
picture,  which  serves  to  support  the  Oxford  writer's  con- 
tention. The  central  figure  wears  a  bishop's  mitre,  not  the 
triple  Papal  crown;  the  gentleman  on  his  left  bears  little 
resemblance  to  Charles,  and  the  lady  to  whom  he  tenders 
a  sceptre  none  whatever  to  Henrietta  Maria.  But  the 
writer  is  not  daunted.  "  Reader  if  thou  hast  viewed  that 
stately  picture  which  was  lately  sent  up  to  the  Parliament 
by  Colonel  Morley  and  was  taken  in  a  Flemish  ship  upon 
the  Sussex  shore:  Thou  hast  beheld  therein  the  weaker 
sex  triumphing  over  the  stronger,  and  by  the  help  of  a 
Mitre  thou  hast  seen  a  sceptre  doing  homage  to  the  distaff." 
It  must  be  owned  that  for  once  Oxford  defeated  London, 
and  that  Colonel  Morley's  misplaced  zeal  brought  some 
ridicule  on  his  party.  The  nightmare  of  Popery,  the 
tendency  to  attribute  all  the  King's  actions  to  the  influence 
of  the  French-born  queen,  was  partly  genuine,  partly  an 
affectation  for  political  ends. 

Meantime  the  year  1644  was  passing  without  any  event 
of  great  moment  occurring  in  Sussex;  but  the  Parliament's 

1  B.M.,  Thomason  tracts:  pressmark  E.  3  (21). 


156     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

efforts  to  raise  men  and  money  were  unceasing.  On 
25th  January  Lawrence  Ashburnham,1  who  with  Thomas 
Middleton,  William  and  Thomas  Michelborne,  Henry 
Shelley,  and  Herbert  Hay,  had  been  appointed  by  the 
Parliament  a  deputy-lieutenant  of  Sussex  in  the  previous 
month,  wrote  to  the  Mayor  and  jurats  of  Rye,  informing 
them,  on  the  authority  of  Sir  Thomas  Pelham,  Sir  Thomas 
Parker,  and  Colonel  Morley,  representing  the  Committee  at 
Lewes,  that  the  army  was  in  great  want  "  by  reason  that 
the  provision  money  is  not  sent  in  according  to  the  time 
appointed."  They  were  requested  with  all  possible  speed 
to  send  the  said  money  with  all  arrears  to  Mr.  John 
Aylwine  at  Lewes.  The  corporation  endeavoured  to 
escape  this  contribution  on  the  ground  that  they  had  not 
received  £200  promised  by  the  Committee  for  the  fortifica- 
tion of  the  town,  and  drew  a  moving  picture  of  the  dangers 
to  which  their  ships  and  trade,  and  even  the  town  itself, 
were  exposed  from  the  King's  privateers.2 

The  captured  castle  of  Arundel  was  being  used  as  a 
magazine;  on  24th  February  the  Committee  of  both  king- 
doms ordered  100  barrels  of  gunpowder  to  be  laid  into  the 
castle  for  the  store  and  use  of  Sir  William  Waller.  The 
importance  of  fully  securing  Chichester  against  a  surprise 
was  realized,  and  in  April  Colonel  Stapley,  the  governor, 
was  ordered  to  increase  the  garrison  to  800  men.3  He  was 
at  the  same  time  urged  to  hasten  the  despatch  of  the 
county  contingent  to  Waller.  This  refers  to  an  ordinance 
dated  3ist  March  1644*  for  raising  3,000  foot  and  1,200 
horse  and  500  dragoons  to  be  commanded  by  Sir  William 
Waller,  Serjeant-Major-General  of  the  associated  counties 
of  Hants,  Surrey,  Sussex,  and  Kent.  The  money  con- 
tingent for  Sussex  was  ;£68o  i6.y.  In  June  Colonel  Apsley, 

1  Cousin  of  John  Ashburnham,  the  King's  Treasurer  and  attendant; 
one  of  many  instances  of  the  political  division  of  families. 

2  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  214. 

3  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  di,  65.  *  Dallaway,  i,  cxxix. 


THE  CLUBMEN  157 

member  for  Steyning,  was  actively  endeavouring  to  raise  a 
regiment  in  Sussex,  for  and  by  authority  of  Sir  William 
Waller,  but  the  gentlemen  of  the  county  objected  on  the 
ground  that  the  burden  of  supporting  the  officers  would 
annoy  the  inhabitants;  Waller  was  therefore  desired  to 
cancel  his  commission  to  Apsley,  which  he  did  willingly, 
"  the  rather  because  I  would  not  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  gentlemen  of  Sussex,  from  whom  I  have  received 
nothing  but  constant  incivilities." l 

In  September  Sir  William  Waller  requested  the  Com- 
mittee of  both  kingdoms  to  send  speedily  to  Arundel 
Castle  a  supply  of  sixty  barrels  of  gunpowder,  with  match 
and  ball  proportionable.  "  In  this  extremity  we  must  raise 
all  the  strength  we  can,  though  we  think  of  paying  them 
afterwards." ''  In  October  "  the  Committee  of  Arundel 
Castle  "  wrote  to  the  House  of  Commons  concerning  the 
compounding  with  the  principal  delinquents  of  Sussex,3 
whose  estates  had  been  sequestered,  and  were  being  held 
by  the  Sussex  Committee :  "  We  gratefully  acknowledge 
your  favour  in  granting  us  our  sequestered  rents,  to  main- 
tain our  garrisons;  but  such  are  the  deadness  of  the  times 
and  the  malignity  of  the  people,  that  much  land  lies  waste, 
and  none  will  use  any  but  at  very  low  rents,  so  that  these 
rents  do  not  rise  to  the  value  that  is  supposed.  We  hear 
that  some  of  our  chief  malcontents  are  to  be  admitted  to  a 
fine,  and  enjoy  their  estates  again ;  but  we  stand  more  in 
need  than  ever  of  their  revenues ;  and  if  these  should  be  so 
lightly  discharged,  upon  the  approach  of  the  enemy  we 
cannot  expect  to  have  any  ill-affected  continued  under  the 
notions  of  neuters  or  malignants;  it  would  create  great 
discontents  and  disheartenings  in  the  best  affected  party. 
The  names  of  the  chief  [delinquents]  are  the  Earl  of 

1  Dallaway,  dii,  3,  7.    One  instance  of  this  "  incivility  "  was  doubt- 
less the  action  of  Colonel  Stapley  after  the  fall   of  Arundel.    See 

P-95- 

2  Ibid.,  diii,  i .  3  See  ante,  ch.  viii. 


158      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Thanet,  Sir  Edw.  Bishop,  Sir  Edw.  Ford,  and  Col.  Jno. 
Apsley."  The  House  referred  the  letter  to  the  Committee 
for  Compounding  at  Goldsmiths'  Hall.1  The  local  com- 
mittees naturally  preferred  sequestration,  under  which  they 
held  the  estates  and  received  the  rents,  to  a  composition, 
when  the  fine  would  be  paid  to  the  central  authority,  and 
used  by  it  elsewhere.  Of  the  fine  of  £5,000  first  imposed 
on  the  Earl  of  Thanet,  £3,000  was  lent  by  the  Goldsmiths' 
Hall  Committee  for  the  payment  of  Abingdon  garrison  on 
security  of  £3,000  worth  of  the  King's  plate,  to  be  delivered 
to  the  Committee  by  Sir  Henry  Mildmay,  and  to  be  melted 
in  three  months  if  the  money  remain  unpaid.2 

During  the  summer  of  1644  Colonel  Morley,  with  "Sixe 
Colours 3  of  Blew  "  from  Sussex,  was  occupied  at  the  siege 
of  Basing,  in  Hampshire,  the  magnificent  and  strongly 
fortified  house  of  the  Marquis  of  Winchester.  Morley 's 
"  pikes  and  muskets "  were  quartered  in  the  park.  With 
the  other  colonels  present  he  received  through  Mr.  Lisle, 
M.P.  for  Winchester,  the  thanks  of  the  House  for  his  "  good 
service."  Towards  the  end  of  June  Colonel  Norton,  who 
had  been  in  command  of  the  besieging  forces,  was  with- 
drawn, and  instructed  to  place  himself  at  the  service  of 
Major-General  Browne,  who  was  to  co-operate  with  Sir 
William  Waller  in  the  intended  siege  of  Oxford.  Morley 
was  left  in  command,  and  brought  great  energy  to  the  con- 
duct of  the  siege.4  He  mounted  culverins  weighing  nearly 
36  cwt.  each,  which  poured  18  Ib.  shot  into  the  house.  By 
the  first  week  of  July  he  had  brought  the  siege  works 
within  pistol  shot.  Having  received  reinforcements  from 
Southampton  on  nth  July,  he  next  day  summoned  the 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  12-13.  2  Ibid.,  12. 

3  Companies. 

*  Mercurius  Civicus,  No.  61,  i7-25th  July  1644.  "The  siege  of 
Basing  House  is  still  closely  continued  by  Col.  Jones,  Col.  Morley,  and 
Col.  Onslow,  and  great  probability  there  is  daily  of  the  taking  or  sur- 
render thereof,  the  house  being  now  very  much  battered  and  defaced 
in  many  places." 


THE  CLUBMEN  159 

Marquis   to   surrender,   sending   "by   a   drum   this  harsh 
demand  ": 

"  MY  LORD, 

"  To  avoid  the  effusion  of  Christian  blood  I  have 
thought  fit  to  send  your  Lordship  this  summons  to  demand 
Basing  House  to  be  delivered  to  me  for  the  use  of  King 
and  Parliament:  if  this  be  refused  the  ensuing  inconveni- 
ence will  rest  upon  you.  I  desire  your  speedy  answer,  and 
Rest,  my  Lord,  your  humble  servant 

"  HERBERT  MORLEY." 

To  which  Lord  Winchester  returned  an  answer  marked 
"  Hast,  hast,  hast,  post  hast." 

"  SIR, 

"  It  is  a  crooked  demand,  and  shall  receive  its  answer 
suitable.  I  keep  this  House  in  the  Right  of  my  Soveraigne, 
and  will  do  it  in  despight  of  your  Forces.  Your  letter  I 
will  preserve  in  testimony  of  your  Rebellion. 

"  WINCHESTER." 

The  besieging  forces  under  Morley  now  numbered  some 
3,000  horse  and  foot.  Some  of  the  chimneys  of  the  house 
had  been  battered  down,  and  a  few  small  breaches  had 
been  made.1  On  2Oth  July  a  captain  in  Morley's  regiment 
was  killed  by  a  shot  from  the  works.  About  the  same  time 
Colonel  Norton  returned  and  resumed  command.  During 
August  the  garrison  suffered  severely  from  small-pox. 
The  King  himself  is  said  to  have  counselled  surrender,  but 
the  stout  old  lord  replied  "  that  under  His  Majesty's  favour, 
the  place  was  his,  and  that  he  was  resolved  to  keep  it  as 
long  as  he  could."  On  loth  August  Colonel  Morley,  while 
inspecting  the  works  in  the  park,  was  wounded  by  a  bullet 
in  the  shoulder,  "  which  spoiled  his  clearkship  ever  since." 

After  eighteen  weeks'  siege  Basing  House  was  relieved 

1  True  Informer,  i3th  July  1644. 


160     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

by  a  force  from  Oxford  under  Colonel  Gage,  with  whom 
was  a  body  of  horse  under  Sir  William  Campion,  which 
drove  off  the  besiegers,  and  placed  a  fresh  supply  of 
powder  and  match  in  the  house,  and  added  100  musketeers 
to  the  garrison.  In  Norton's  retreat  "we  took,"  says  Gage, 
"  a  colour  or  cornet  of  theirs,  which  I  understand  was 
Colonel  Morley's,  the  motto  of  which  was  Non  ab  Aequo 
sed  in  Aequo  ['  Victory  is  not  by  Right  but  in  Right '],  a 
motto  not  so  proper  to  theirs,  as  our  cause,  the  equity  of 
which  gave  us  the  victory  with  the  true  and  genuine 
signification  of  the  motto." l 

Basing  House  held  out  until  October  1645,  when  it  was 
stormed  and  sacked  by  Cromwell.2 

During  the  latter  part  of  1644  infantry  raised  in  Sussex 
was  employed  in  Dorsetshire,  apparently  under  Sir  Anthony 
Ashley  Cooper,  where  its  services  were  not  greatly  appre- 
ciated. In  some  memoranda  drawn  up  by  Cooper  for 
Governor  Bingham  of  Poole,  it  is  stated  (i)  "  That  if  they 
cannot  immediately  send  us  a  supply  of  Horse,  orders  be 
forthwith  sent  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  Sussex  Foot  and 
the  rest  to  be  disposed  into  their  several  garrisons;  the 
keeping  them  together  in  a  body  devours  that  provision 
which  should  be  sent  into  the  garrisons  and  destroys  the 
country — besides  the  few  Horse  we  have,  not  above  100, 
are  wholly  taken  up  with  providing  for  them";  (2)  ".  .  .  we 
shall  be  better  able  to  submit  without  than  with  the  Sussex 
foot." 3 

The  loyalty  of  some  of  the  gentry  and  members  of  Parlia- 
ment, who  had  hitherto  adhered  to  the  Parliamentary  side, 
was  now  beginning  to  be  called  in  question.  Thomas 

1  Gage's  Official  Report. 

*  For  a  detailed  account  of  the  proceedings  at  Basing  see  Godwin's 
Civil  War  in  Hampshire. 

3  The  Civil  War  in  Dorset,  1642-1660,  by  A.  R.  Bayley,  Taunton, 
1910 ;  a  work  of  great  research,  the  value  of  which  is  much  diminished 
by  the  absence  of  an  adequate  Index. 


THE  CLUBMEN  161 

Middleton  had  already  fallen  under  suspicion;1  and  on 
1 6th  October  1644  a  petition  was  delivered  at  the  door  of 
the  House  "  by  divers  ministers  and  well-affected  per- 
sons of  Sussex,"  complaining  of  Sir  T.  Pelham  and  Sir 
T.  Parker;  and  on  2gth  October  John  Ashford  was  de- 
nounced to  it  "  in  consequence  of  the  resort  and  great 
meeting  of  people  ill  affected  to  this  House."  All  these 
matters  were  referred  to  the  Committee,  and  especially  to 
W.  Cawley.2  There  was  a  proposal  at  this  time  to  de- 
molish "  many  strong  houses  "  in  Sussex,  especially  Cow- 
dray;  but  it  was  postponed  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
have  a  very  bad  effect  on  the  county.  When  the  proposal 
was  made  to  the  Committee  of  both  kingdoms,  strong 
objections  to  it  were  raised,  and  the  Committee  wondered 
at  the  Sussex  Committee's  intention.3  But  the  obstinate 
resistance  of  Basing  House  doubtless  made  the  Parliament 
nervous  as  to  the  possibility  of  similar  proceedings  else- 
where. It  was  accordingly  determined  to  garrison  Cow- 
dray,  and  Mr.  Cawley  consented  to  be  governor  if  he  were 
granted  120  foot  and  10  horse,  with  provision  and  ammu- 
nition necessary;4  and  later,  Colonel  Morley  was  instructed 
to  put  more  or  less  men  into  Cowdray  House  as  occasion 
required.5  The  decisive  defeat  of  the  Royal  army  at  New- 
bury,  on  2/th  October,  relieved  the  pressure  on  the 
Southern  counties,  and  it  was  decided  that  it  was  unneces- 
sary either  to  demolish  or  garrison  the  houses  previously 
discussed,  the  Parliament  believing  that  "  the  situation  of 
these  places  may  be  their  own  garrison."6  It  was  also 
ordered  that  the  county  forces  should  not  be  assembled 
till  further  notice,  and  that  the  defence  of  the  county 
should  be  entrusted  to  Colonel  Morley's  regiment.  Having 
been  much  weakened  by  reason  of  its  late  service  at  Basing 
House,  it  was  to  be  made  up  to  its  strength  of  800  men 

1  See  p.  80.  2  S.  A.  C.,  v,  72. 

3  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  diii,  10.  4  Ibid.,  13. 

5  Ibid.,  S3-  6  Ibid.,  40. 

M 


162     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

out  of  the  trained  bands  until  recruits  could  be  sent  up  to 
replace  them.1 

But  the  calm  was  not  long-lived.  In  January  1645  there 
was  great  Royalist  activity  on  the  western  borders  of  the 
county ;  and  on  the  8th  the  Committee  of  both  kingdoms 
wrote  to  the  Committee  of  Sussex :  "  The  forces  of  the 
enemy  growing  strong  in  the  west,  if  they  meet  not  with  a 
speedy  check  are  like  to  endanger  the  port  towns,  and  so 
wholly  subject  that  county  as  to  be  able  to  draw  levies  and 
supplies  from  thence  to  infest  your  borders  lying  next 
them  and  also  lengthen  out  the  war.  We  have  designed  a 
great  party  of  horse  and  dragoons  immediately  to  march 
thither  for  their  removal,  and  therefore  desire  that  500 
dragoons'  horses  may  be  had  out  of  cos.  Kent,  Sussex  and 
Surrey."2  At  the  same  time  it  was  ordered  that  1,000  foot 
should  march  from  Reading  to  oppose  the  enemy  about 
Sussex;  and  that  Colonels  Stapley  and  Morley,  being 
deputy-lieutenants,  should  call  the  trained  bands  into 
Arundel  and  Chichester  for  the  defence  of  those  towns. 
These  preparations  were  rendered  necessary  by  the  designs 
on  Sussex  of  George  Goring,  recently  appointed  Royalist 
lieutenant-general  of  Hampshire,  Sussex,  Surrey,  and 
Kent.3  In  December  1644  he  was  sent  into  Hampshire 
"  upon  a  design  of  his  own  of  making  an  incursion  into  Sus- 
sex, where  he  pretended  he  had  correspondence,  and  that 
very  many  well-affected  persons  promised  to  rise  and  de- 
clare for  the  King,  and  that  Kent  would  do  the  same."4  In 
pursuance  of  this  design  he  advanced  as  far  as  Farnham, 
attacked  Christchurch  and  was  repulsed,  and  then  took  up 
his  winter  quarters  at  Salisbury.  He  laid  the  blame  of  his 
failure  on  the  defects  of  his  army  and  the  disobedience  of 
his  officers,  and  used  these  pretexts  to  obtain  greater  inde- 
pendence and  larger  powers.5 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  diii,  54.  2  Ibid.,  dvi,  10. 

3  Black,  Oxford  Docquets,  p.  244.        4  Clarendon,  Rebellion,  ix,  7. 

5  D.  N.  B.  ;   Warburton's  Cavaliers,  iii,  46,  52. 


THE  CLUBMEN  163 

Its  indecisive  character  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  fea- 
ture of  the  war  during  these  first  two  years.  In  Sussex, 
Chichester  had  twice  been  captured,  Arundel  had  thrice 
fallen,  and  still  there  was  constant  fear  as  to  a  repetition  of 
such  events.  Either  party  was  able  on  occasion  to  put  into 
the  field  a  sufficient  force  to  effect  much  in  the  absence  of 
its  opponents ;  neither  could  organize  an  army  adequate  to 
bring  a  campaign  to  a  triumphant  and  definite  conclusion.1 
"  Our  victories,"  said  a  Parliamentary  orator,  in  December 
1644,  "the  price  of  blood  invaluable,  so  gallantly  gotten, 
and,  which  is  more  pity,  so  graciously  bestowed,  seem  to 
have  been  put  into  a  bag  with  holes ;  what  we  won  one 
time  we  lost  another.  The  treasure  is  exhausted;  the 
country  is  wasted.  A  summer's  victory  has  proved  but  a 
winter's  story.  The  game  however  shut  up  in  autumn  has 
to  be  new  played  again  next  spring ;  as  if  the  blood  that 
has  been  shed  were  only  to  manure  the  ground  for  a  new 
crop  of  contention.  Men's  hearts  have  failed  them  with 
the  observation  of  these  things."2  Six  months  before  Sir 
William  Waller  had  plainly  told  Parliament  that  an  army 
compounded  of  local  levies  would  never  do  their  business. 
"  Till  you  have  an  army  merely  your  own,"  said  he,  "  that 
you  may  command,  it  is  impossible  to  do  anything  of  im- 
portance."3 The  army  which  Waller  had  foreshadowed 
was  brought  into  being  by  the  genius  and  perseverance  of 
Fairfax  and  Cromwell.  The  scheme  for  the  New  Model 
passed  the  Commons  on  2/th  January  1645,  and  the  Lords 
on  1 5th  February.  The  end  was  already  in  sight. 

In  February  and  March  Parliament  was  taking  steps  to 
"  raise,  levy  and  impress  men  for  the  new  army  of  Sir 
Thomas  Fairfax."  Sussex  was  directed  to  provide  600 
men.4  Orders  sent  out  at  this  time  enjoined  that  especial 
care  be  taken  in  the  choice  of  able,  full-grown  and  well 

1  See  Firth,  Cromwell's  Army,  p.  30.  a  Rushworth,  vi,  4. 

3  Gardiner,  Great  Civil  War,  ii,  5. 

4  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvi,  72. 


164     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

clothed  men  meet  for  this  employment ;  that  care  be  taken 
in  the  choice  of  conductors  and  assistance  afforded  them  to 
keep  their  men  from  straggling  and  pilfering  the  country  as 
they  go,  or  from  departing  from  their  colours ;  and  that  the 
men  so  impressed  be  commodiously  provided,  as  had 
formerly  been  the  practice,  with  red  coats  faced  with  blue.1 
Sussex  was  also  ordered  to  provide  a  money  contingent  of 
j£3>927  1SS-  6%d-  to  be  paid  by  monthly  instalments.2 

The  scare  concerning  the  fortification  of  Sussex  houses 
in  the  Royalist  interest  was  not  yet  over.  In  April  the 
County  Committee  was  warned  from  London  that  the 
enemy  had  a  design  of  fortifying  Sir  Richard  Norton's 
house  at  Rotherfield,  which  if  effected  would  be  of  very 
great  inconvenience  to  those  parts;  and  was  desired  to 
take  means  to  prevent  such  mischief  and  to  consult  with 
the  gentlemen  of  Surrey  as  to  what  steps  were  advisable.3 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  unrest  in  the  south-eastern 
counties  at  this  time,  and  a  Kentish  regiment  was  in  open 
mutiny.4 

On  loth  May  Algernon  Sidney  was  appointed  Governor 
of  Chichester,  in  place  of  Colonel  Stapley ;  and  a  month 
later  he  received  instructions  to  put  the  town  in  a  thorough 
state  of  defence,  to  resist  an  advance  of  the  enemy  either 
from  Oxford  or  from  the  west ;  and  to  keep  careful  guard 
that  he  might  not  be  surprised  by  any  inconsiderable  party 
which  might  make  an  attempt.5  The  famous  Algernon 
Sidney,  son  of  the  second  Earl  of  Leicester,  was  at  this 
time  only  twenty-three  years  of  age,  and  at  the  threshold 
of  the  remarkable  career  which  ended  on  the  scaffold  after 
the  discovery  of  the  Rye-House  Plot  in  1683. 

Critical  as  the  position  in  West  Sussex  seems  to  have 
been  considered,  the  exigences  of  the  besiegers  of  Basing 
House  overruled  every  other  consideration.  Colonel  Sidney 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvi,  72.  2  Dallaway,  i,  cxxix. 

3  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvii,  2.  4  Ibid.,  27. 

'  Ibid.)  120. 


THE  CLUBMEN  165 

was  ordered  to  find  400  men  for  the  siege,  300  from 
Chichester  and  100  from  Arundel;1  and  shortly  afterwards 
an  urgent  demand  for  100  musketeers  was  made;  the  Com- 
mittee of  Sussex  at  the  same  time  to  find  100  dragoon 
horses.2  These  contingents,  we  learn,  were  "  sent  forth  with 
much  cheerfulness."8 

The  cheerfulness  was  perhaps  only  a  Parliamentary 
euphemism  to  encourage  the  other  counties.  There  is 
evidence  that  after  more  than  two  years  of  indecisive  war- 
fare the  country  was  getting  thoroughly  tired  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  both  factions.  The  Royalists,  especially  the 
forces  under  Rupert  and  Goring,  had  acquired  the  worst 
reputation  for  plunderings  and  high-handed  action,  but  the 
presence  of  either  army  was  a  great  burden  to  the  in- 
habitants. The  county  of  Surrey  took  the  lead  in  urging 
the  great  grievance  it  endured  from  the  practice  of  free 
quartering,  and  used  the  very  practical  argument  of  its  in- 
ability to  quarter  an  army  and  to  pay  taxes  at  the  same 
time.  On  loth  February  1645  the  Committee  wrote  to  Sir 
William  Waller  that  they  received  a  petition,  presented  by 
divers  gentlemen  and  inhabitants  of  Surrey  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  recommended  from  the  county  in  a 
special  manner,  representing  the  sufferings  of  that  county, 
especially  the  western  part,  by  the  long  free  quartering  of 
soldiers,  both  horse  and  foot,  now  under  his  command 
amongst  them;  who,  notwithstanding  former  orders  for 
their  removal  before  this  time,  did  yet  continue  there  and 
commit  many  insufferable  outrages  upon  men's  persons 
and  estates.  They  therefore  earnestly  desired  him  to  com- 
mand those  forces  speedily  to  remove  into  other  quarters 
out  of  that  county,  that  it  might  no  longer  be  disabled  from 
paying  the  taxes  required  from  it.4 

On  25th  April  a  letter  of  similar  purport  was  sent  to 
Sir  Thomas  Fairfax.  Some  troops  of  Haselrig's  were  lying 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvii,  104.  *  Ibid.,  118. 

3  Ibid.,  123.  4  Ibid.,  dvi,  41. 


166     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

in  Surrey  upon  free  quarter,  and  exorbitant  warrants  were 
being  given  out  for  provisions,  Fairfax  was  requested  to 
see  that  no  more  such  warrants  were  given  out;  that  what 
had  been  taken  was  paid  for,  and  that  the  counties  from 
which  his  contributions  were  to  come  should  not  have 
troops  quartered  upon  them.1  At  a  later  date  we  shall  find 
Sussex  suffering  from  a  similar  grievance. 

The  discontent  of  the  non-combatants  in  the  southern 
counties  was  now  ripe  for  an  explosion.  "  The  people  in 
Kent  and  Sussex,"  it  was  said,  "  are  very  much  given  to 
dispute  with  their  masters'  taxes,  and  speak  high  and  do 
some  small  matters."2  Isolated  instances  of  resistance  by 
peasants  to  plunder  or  extortion  had  previously  occurred. 
In  February  1644  two  soldiers  were  killed  by  the  villagers 
of  Nuthurst,  near  Horsham.  The  culprits  were  sent  to 
Arundel  to  be  tried  by  Court-martial,  but  Parliament,  on 
a  petition  from  Horsham,  ordered  them  to  be  delivered  to 
the  Civil  authorities.3  In  1645  the  smouldering  fires  of  dis- 
content broke  into  flame  in  the  form  of  a  rising  of  the 
country  people  on  the  plausible  grounds  of  protecting 
themselves  against  the  plunder  and  harassment  of  both 
armies.  It  seems  to  have  originated  in  Wilts  and  Dorset, 
with  a  meeting,  on  25th  May,  of  4,000  farmers  and  yeo- 
men to  appoint  an  organized  body  of  watchmen  to  seize 
plunderers,  and  to  carry  them  for  punishment  to  the  nearest 
garrison  of  the  party  to  which  they  belonged.4  But  it  was 
found  impossible  to  get  the  officers  to  do  justice  on  their 
own  men,  and  on  3Oth  June  the  farmers  resolved  to  inflict 
the  punishment  themselves,  and  also  to  afford  protection 
to  deserters  from  any  service  into  which  they  had  been 
pressed  unwillingly. 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvi,  34. 

a  Arthur  Trevor  to  the  Marquis  of  Ormond,  8th  May,  1645  (Carte's 
Collections,  p.  85). 

3  Carte's  Collection,  quoted  in  Hurst's  Horsham,  p.  19. 
'  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  xxxii. 


THE  CLUBMEN  167 

This  movement  of  the  Clubmen,  as  they  were  called 
because  they  were  armed  with  rough  and  rustic  weapons, 
rapidly  assumed  the  proportions  of  an  open  revolt,  directed 
in  the  main  against  the  Parliament ;  but  in  Somerset,  which 
had  suffered  from  the  depredations  of  the  Royalist  leader, 
Lord  Goring,  inclined  to  favour  his  opponents.  The  design 
was  perhaps  at  bottom  Royalist;  the  country  folk,  the 
great  mass  of  whom  were  neutrals,  being  worked  upon  by 
the  Royalist  gentry  and  clergy.1  The  rapid  extension  of 
the  movement  emboldened  its  leaders,  who  presumed  to 
send  messages  both  to  King  and  Parliament,  demanding 
that  peace  should  forthwith  be  made,  and  the  armies  dis- 
missed to  their  homes.  Holies,  the  leader  of  the  Dorset 
Clubmen,  told  Fairfax  that  if  their  terms  were  not  granted 
they  were  strong  enough  to  enforce  obedience.  Fairfax 
would  soon  be  engaged  with  Goring ;  if  he  got  the  worst  of 
the  fight,  every  fugitive  would  be  knocked  on  the  head 
without  mercy.  Fairfax  pointed  out  with  admirable  temper 
that  it  was  impossible  to  accept  their  demands.  At  all 
costs  he  must  hold  the  port-towns  to  prevent  a  foreign  in- 
vasion. The  King  had  already  made  contracts  to  bring  in 
10,000  French  and  4,000  Irish.2 

The  aspirations  and  designs  of  the  Clubmen  are  well 
expressed  in  the  manifesto  of  a  "  peaceable  meeting  "  of  the 
knights,  gentlemen,  freeholders,  and  others,  the  inhabitants 
of  the  county  of  Berks.  This  declaration-  expressed  that 
the  miserable  inhabitants  of  the  county,  foreseeing  famine 
and  utter  desolation  for  themselves,  their  wives,  and  their 
children,  unanimously  joined  in  petitioning  his  Majesty 
and  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  for  a  happy  peace  and 
accommodation  of  the  present  differences  without  further 
effusion  of  Christian  blood.  In  the  meantime  they  de- 
clared that  they  really  intended  to  the  utmost  hazard  of 
their  lives  and  liberties  to  defend  and  maintain  the  true 

1  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  Letter  XXX.  2  Rushworth,  vi,  52. 


1 68     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Reformed  Protestant  religion ;  to  join  with  and  assist  one 
another  in  the  mutual  defence  of  their  laws,  liberties,  and 
properties  against  all  plunderers  and  all  other  unlawful 
violence  whatsoever ;  they  resolved  and  faithfully  promised 
each  to  other  that  if  any  person  or  persons  concurring  with 
them  should  suffer  in  his  person  or  estate  in  execution  of 
their  objects,  it  should  be  the  suffering  of  the  generality, 
and  reparation  be  made  to  the  party  suffering,  and  in  case 
of  loss  of  life  provision  should  be  made  for  his  wife  and 
children.1 

According  to  Locke,  the  movement  had  been  originated 
by  Anthony  Cooper,  afterwards  first  Earl  of  Shaftesbury, 
then  a  young  man  of  twenty-four.  He  had  abandoned  the 
King's  cause  in  the  previous  year,  but  was  perhaps  not 
very  enthusiastic  for  that  of  the  Parliament.  His  influence 
was  very  great  in  Wilts  and  Dorset.  In  the  latter  county 
Cromwell  himself  was  set  the  task  of  dealing  with  the 
trouble.  Having  failed  to  draw  them  into  a  discussion  of 
grievances,  he  attacked  a  large  body  of  Clubmen  who  had 
occupied  an  old  Roman  or  British  camp  on  Hambledon 
Hill,  near  Shaftesbury,  and  put  them  all  to  flight.  In  his 
letter  to  Fairfax  he  says :  "  We  have  taken  about  300 ; 
many  of  which  are  poor  silly  creatures,  whom  if  you  please 
to  let  me  send  home,  they  promise  to  be  very  dutiful  for 
time  to  come,  and  '  will  be  hanged  before  they  come  out 
again.' " 2  There  was  abundant  evidence  "  how  deeply 
Royalist  this  scheme  of  Clubmen  had  been :  Commissions 
for  raising  regiments  of  Clubmen;  the  design  to  be  ex- 
tended over  England  at  large,  yea,  into  the  Associated 
Counties  " 3 — such  papers  were  found  on  the  person  of  Sir 
Lewis  Dives  at  the  capture  of  Sherborne  Castle.4 

From  Wiltshire  the  revolt  soon  spread  into  Hampshire, 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  247. 

2  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  Letter  XXX. 

3  Ibid.  ;   Sprigge,  Anglia  Rediviva,  p.  81. 

4  Ibid.,  pp.  90-96. 


iTHE  CLUBMEN  169 

and  thence  into  Sussex.  On  i8th  and  igth  September 
Mr.  Cawley  and  the  Sussex  Committee  reported  "  divers 
outrageous  proceedings"  of  1,000  Clubmen  at  Rowkeshill, 
near  Chichester.  On  the  previous  day  a  meeting  of  600 
Clubmen  had  been  held  on  Runcton  *  Down,  and  a  meet- 
ing at  Bury  Hill,  near  Arundel,  on  the  following  Monday 
arranged  for.  Prompt  measures  were  taken.  Colonel  Nor- 
ton— Cromwell's  friend  "  idle  Dick  " — was  ordered  to  march 
into  Sussex,  where  he  was  to  be  reinforced  by  1,000  horse 
and  by  the  county  trained-bands,  if  their  fidelity  could  be 
trusted.2  The  Committee  for  Hants,  Surrey,  and  Sussex 
were  directed  to  consult  "  how  to  prevent  any  inconvenience 
that  may  happen  by  reason  of  the  Clubmen,"  and  to  se- 
quester the  estates  of  all  recusants.  Meantime,  before 
daybreak  on  Sunday,  2ist  September,  Colonel  Morley  and 
Captain  Morley,  then  governor  of  Arundel,  had  sent  Major 
Young  to  fall 'on  the  head-quarters  of  the  Clubmen  at  Wal- 
berton,  and  dispersed  them,  as  related  by  an  eye-witness 
in  a  communication  to  Mr.  Speaker  Lenthall.3  "  This  third 
party,  not  having  the  least  show  or  pretence  of  any  au- 
thority, and  contrary  to  the  chiefest  power  of  this  king- 
dom, the  Parliament  called  by  his  Majesty  at  Westminster, 
tumultuously  assembled  themselves  together,  not  only  in 
the  west,  but  also  through  their  instigations  have  caused 
many  thousands  of  the  ignorant  in  the  adjacent  counties 
to  rise  up  together  with  them  as  far  as  Hampshire.  Divers 
of  which  county,  not  contented  with  their  own  preposterous 
courses,  have  proceeded  to  inveigle  divers  people  of  the 
next  adjacent  county  of  Sussex  to  follow  their  evil  courses, 
amongst  which  they  have  prevailed  upon  one  Aylen,  son 
to  one  Mr.  Aylen,  formerly  Captain  of  a  trained-band,  also 

1  ?  Duncton.  2  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dx,  128,  139. 

3  A  true  Relation  of  the  Rising  of  the  Club-men  in  Sussex,  as  it  was 
related  to  William  Lenthall,  Esq:  Speaker  to  the  Honorable  House  of 
Commons,  by  an  eyewitness  of  the  same.  Published  by  Authority. 
London  :  printed  for  John  Field,  Sept.  23,  1645.  B.M.  E  302  (18). 


i;o     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

one  Mr.  Peckham,  besides  some  of  the  Fords,  and  some 
others  yeomen  of  the  said  county,  to  join  together  as  ring- 
leaders in  a  confederacy  with  the  vulgar  multitude.  Who, 
being  ignorant  of  manners,  much  more  of  such  things  as 
concern  their  liberty  and  peace,  did  accordingly  send  for 
warrants  into  the  several  towns  and  hamlets  next  adjoining 
Hampshire,  as  also  in  and  about  Midhurst,  to  join  with 
them  in  keeping  of  a  general  rendezvous  upon  Runcton 
Hill,  which  is  between  Midhurst  and  Chichester  in  the 
said  county,  which  was  accordingly  done  last  Wednesday. 
Since  which  time  they  have  further  proceeded  to  call  in 
the  rest  of  the  country  betwixt  Chichester  and  Arundel  to 
join  with  them  in  a  general  rendezvous  to  be  held  at  Bury 
Hill  within  one  mile  of  Arundel  upon  Monday  the  two 
and  twentieth  of  this  present.  Many  people  of  the  said 
places,  especially  about  Eastergate,  and  Walberton,  and 
so  down  to  the  sea-side,  and  upon  the  western  side  of  the 
River  of  Arundel  towards  Petworth  have  joined  with  them, 
and  drawing  themselves  into  great  numbers  upon  Saturday 
the  twentieth  of  this  present,  they  kept  their  quarters  at 
Walberton  and  divers  other  places  thereabouts.  Their 
number  being  greatly  increased,  and  they  rendering  no 
account  of  their  said  tumultuous  proceedings,  the  honor- 
able Colonel  Morley,  Captain  Morley,  Governor  of  Arundel 
Castle,  and  Major  Young,  upon  consultation  thought  fit  to 
fall  on  them  in  their  quarters  at  Walberton,  as  being  the 
next  place  to  them,  and  within  five  miles  of  Arundel, 
hoping  thereby  to  dishearten  and  disappoint  them  in  con- 
tinuing their  tumultuous  proceedings.  And  accordingly 
upon  Sunday  morning  about  three  hours  before  day,  Major 
Young  with  about  ten  horsemen  and  forty  footmen  fell 
upon  them  in  their  quarters  at  Walberton,  killed  him  who 
went  to  ring  the  bells  as  the  most  dangerous  man,  by  his 
doings,  to  call  in  the  rest  of  their  adherents  to  their  aid, 
which  by  his  death  was  prevented ;  whereupon  the  rest  of 
them  so  far  lost  their  courage,  that  everyone  shifted  for 


THE  CLUBMEN  171 

themselves,  and  fled  all  save  two  malignant  ministers,  and 
some  other  stragglers  of  that  place,  who  were  taken  pri- 
soners, and  are  committed  in  safe  custody  unto  Arundel 
Castle,  where  it  is  believed  they  shall  receive,  according  to 
their  demerits,  such  exemplary  punishment  as  will  give 
good  warning  to  the  rest  of  their  tribe  to  beware  how 
they  follow  them,  and  proceed  in  the  like  preposterous 
courses." 

On  26th  September  Colonel  Norton  reported  that  he 
had  put  down  the  Hampshire  Clubmen,  and  added:  "I 
hope  this  will  be  a  warning  to  Sussex;  if  not  we  shall  be 
ready  to  serve  them  the  like  trick." l  His  troopers  "  cut 
and  hackt  many  of  them,  took  all  their  chiefs,  ringleaders 
and  about  1,000  arms,  which  made  their  neighbours  in 
Sussex  to  shrink  in  their  heads,  and  we  hear  most  of  them 
are  departed  to  their  own  homes."  * 

Sussex,  however,  continued  in  a  very  unsettled  state.  On 
7th  October  it  was  reported  to  Parliament  that  of  the  400 
men  appointed  from  the  county,  only  269  had  joined  Fair- 
fax's army.  On  I3th  October  William  Cawley  wrote  to 
Robert  Scawen 3  complaining  that  by  reason  of  the  Club- 
men's insurrection  they  could  raise  neither  men  nor  money 
for  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax's  army  nor  upon  any  other  ordin- 
ance ;  they  would  not  suffer  the  officers  to  impress,  and  if 
any  were  impressed  they  were  forcibly  rescued,  a  constable 
or  tithingman  being  sometimes  sent  with  the  blood  running 
about  his  ears.  Wherefor  of  67  to  be  impressed  in  Chichester 
rape,  there  were  brought  in  only  27,  whom  they  were  forced 
to  maintain  at  a  great  charge  for  fourteen  days,  and  then 
sent  to  Lieutenant-General  Cromwell  at  Winchester.  The 
remaining  40  they  would  endeavour  to  raise  if  the  House 
would  authorize  them  to  apprehend  the  principal  fomentors, 
and  so  punish  them  that  by  their  example  others  might 
be  affrighted  from  attempting  the  like.  And  they  were  in 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Rep.  x  (6),  163. 

2  Kingdom's  Weekly  Intelligencer.  3  M.P.  for  Berwick. 


172     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

no  better  case  for  money.  It  was  one  of  the  Clubmen's 
articles  to  pay  only  such  taxes  as  they  pleased,  the  fruits 
of  which  were  that  of  over  £4,000  due  less  than  .£100  had 
been  brought  in  since  the  first  rising.  No  collector  dared 
to  distrain  for  fear  of  having  his  brains  dashed  out,  the 
servants  and  women  rising  together  to  resist  armed  with 
prongs  and  other  weapons,  so  that  of  eight  months'  due 
upon  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax's  army  not  two  months'  was  yet 
brought  in.  All  this  would  be  easily  remedied  if  the  House 
authorized  the  Committee  to  sequester  the  ringleaders,  fine 
the  rest,  and  disarm  all ;  but  until  that  was  done,  it  was  in 
vain  for  them  to  issue  their  warrants,  their  persons  being 
scorned  and  threatened  and  the  House's  authority  abused 
and  derided.1 

The  conferring  of  the  powers  requested  no  doubt  ter- 
minated the  trouble,  of  which  we  hear  no  more. 

With  the  fall  of  Winchester  and  of  Basing  House  in 
October  1645  the  tide  of  war  rolled  away  from  Hampshire 
and  Sussex.  Cromwell,  in  urging  the  complete  demolition 
of  Basing,  suggested  that  a  strong  post  should  be  made  of 
Newbury,  not  only  as  a  check  on  Donnington  Castle,  which 
still  held  out  for  the  King,  but  on  account  of  its  strategic 
importance,  and  to  keep  open  the  road  between  London 
and  Bristol.  Part  of  the  garrison  was  to  be  composed  of 
men  taken  from  the  garrisons  of  Farnham  and  Chichester. 
"  I  believe,"  he  wrote  to  Lenthall,  "  the  gentlemen  of  Sussex 
and  Hampshire  will  with  more  cheerfulness  contribute  to 
maintain  a  garrison  on  the  frontier  than  in  their  bowels, 
which  will  have  less  safety  in  it." 2 

Such  appears  to  have  been  the  opinion  of  Sussex.  When 
the  Scottish  Convention  undertook  in  1643  to  send  an 
army  into  England  to  assist  the  Parliament,  on  the  under- 
standing that  £30,000  per  month  should  be  found  for  its 
support,  a  loan  of  £200,000  was  ordered  to  be  raised  for 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  289. 

2  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  Letter  XXXII. 


THE  CLUBMEN  173 

the  purpose.  Towards  this  loan  Sussex  was  assessed  at 
^13,500.  In  the  early  part  of  1645  some  correspondence 
passed  on  the  subject  of  this  assessment,  a  portion  of 
which  was  still  unpaid.1  In  the  following  January  Colonel 
Anthony  Stapley  wrote  from  Lewes  to  the  Speaker  en- 
closing a  petition  from  a  considerable  body  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  county  asking  repayment  of  part  of  the 
money  lent  by  them  towards  the  ^200,000  for  the  Scottish 
loan  out  of  the  sequestrations  of  the  county;  and  urging 
that  the  garrison  of  Chichester,  which  was  maintained  out 
of  the  sequestrations,  might  be  dissolved  as  useless.2  This 
request  was  granted,  and  on  2nd  March  1646  an  order  was 
made  "  that  the  ordnance  at  Chichester  be  brought  to 
Arundel  Castle,  that  Chichester  be  disgarrisoned,  and  the 
fortifications  made  since  the  troubles  demolished." 

The  garrisons  had  already  been  denuded  of  troops.  On 
8th  November  the  Committee  of  both  kingdoms  had  de- 
sired the  Committee  of  Sussex  to  send  a  troop  of  horse 
and  all  the  foot  they  could  spare  for  the  strengthening  of 
the  garrison  at  Abingdon,  these  forces  to  be  entertained  at 
the  State's  charge,  and  their  arms,  if  damaged,  to  be  made 
good  out  of  the  public  stores. 

Although,  as  we  have  seen,  no  event  of  the  first  import- 
ance occurred  in  Sussex  during  the  year  1645  and  the  first 
half  of  1646,  there  were  many  indications  of  the  changing 
position  of  affairs.  It  was  a  period  fraught  with  momentous 
consequences  to  the  country  at  large,  and  therefore  indi- 
rectly to  the  county.  It  marked  the  rise,  organization,  and 
complete  success  of  the  New  Model  Army,  the  gradual 
decay  of  the  King's  power,  and  his  crushing  defeat  at 
Naseby,  which  lost  him  the  Midlands  as  Marston  Moor 
had  lost  him  the  North,  and  left  the  final  issue  of  the 
struggle  no  longer  in  doubt.  For  a  year  more  the  royal 
flag  flew  over  an  ever-diminishing  number  of  towns  and 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvii,  154. 

2  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  347. 


174     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

fortresses,  but  with  the  flight  of  Charles  to  the  Scots  in 
May  1646,  and  the  surrender  of  Oxford  a  month  later,  the 
First  Civil  War  may  be  considered  finished.  The  New 
Model,  the  instrument  by  which  this  result  was  achieved, 
was  destined  to  be  a  deadlier  foe  to  Parliamentary  inde- 
pendence than  any  sovereign,  and  to  usurp  the  functions 
of  government  for  many  a  year  to  come.  Its  inception  was 
a  phase  in  the  struggle  between  the  two  parties  into  which 
Parliament  was  divided,  the  Presbyterians  and  the  Inde- 
pendents. Taken  in  conjunction  with  the  Self-denying 
Ordinance,  requiring  all  members  of  either  House  to  resign 
their  commands,  it  got  rid  of  the  Essexes,  the  Man- 
chesters,  and  other  Presbyterian  leaders,  and  placed  the 
military  power  in  the  hands  of  new  men,  chiefly  Inde- 
pendents, among  whom  Cromwell  was  rapidly  rising  to  a 
pre-eminent  position.  This  change  amounted  to  a  com- 
plete revolution  in  the  civil  and  military  executive.  The 
forces  of  the  Parliament,  hitherto  composed  of  separate 
bodies  of  local  militia,  were  consolidated  into  a  regular 
army  of  professional  soldiers.  As  Cromwell  himself  ex- 
plained in  many  speeches  and  letters,  the  New  Model  was 
simply  his  own  troop  of  East  Anglian  horse  enlarged.  And 
it  was  more  than  an  army.  It  was  an  organized  body  of 
radical  reformers,  with  very  definite  objects  both  in  the 
spiritual  and  the  civil  sphere.  "In  things  spiritual  they 
were  Independent,  or  earnest  for  entire  liberty  of  con- 
science; in  things  civil  they  were  already  tending  to  the 
Commonwealth,  to  political  and  social  revolution."  l 

The  scheme  of  the  New  Model  provided  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  force  of  21,000  men,  with  regular  pay 
dependent  on  the  monthly  payment  of  taxes  regularly 
imposed,  and  not  on  the  fluctuating  attention  of  a  political 
assembly,  or  the  still  more  doubtful  goodwill  of  County 
Committees.  These  taxes  were  to  be  assessed  on  the 

1  Harrison,  Cromwell,  p.  85. 


THE  CLUBMEN  i;5 

counties  least  exposed  to  the  stress  of  war,  whilst  those  in 
which  the  conflict  was  raging  might  be  left  to  support  the 
local  garrisons  and  any  special  force  employed  for  their 
defence.1  We  have  seen  how  Sussex  fared  in  this  con- 
nection. 

But  though  the  Self-denying  Ordinance  eliminated  the 
Presbyterian  peers,  who  had  hitherto  commanded  the 
Parliamentary  forces,  in  the  selection  of  officers  for  the  New 
Model  Army,  the  Independents  were  true  to  their  prin- 
ciples, not  only  in  making  no  inquiry  into  religious  tenets, 
but  in  paying  no  attention  to  distinctions  of  rank  un- 
accompanied by  public  service  or  personal  merit  "  I  had 
rather,"  Cromwell  had  once  written,  "  have  a  plain  russet- 
coated  Captain  that  knows  what  he  fights  for,  and  loves 
what  he  knows,  than  that  which  you  call  'a  gentleman,'  and 
is  nothing  else.  I  honour  a  gentleman  that  is  so  indeed." 2 
The  upper  class  did  not  come  badly  out  of  the  test.  Among 
the  new  military  leaders  were  Hewson  the  cobbler  and 
Pride  the  drayman;  but  the  gentry  were  largely  repre- 
sented in  the  list  of  officers.  It  has  been  calculated  that 
"  out  of  thirty-seven  generals  and  colonels  "  who  took  part 
in  the  first  great  battle,  "  twenty-one  were  commoners  of 
good  families,  nine  were  members  of  noble  families,  and 
only  seven  were  not  gentlemen  by  birth." 3 

Of  the  new  army  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax  was  made  Com- 
mander-in-Chief ;  and  he  laboured  earnestly  and  with  suc- 
cess to  perfect  its  organization.  "  The  voice  was  the  voice 
of  Fairfax ;  but  the  hands  were  the  hands  of  Oliver."  4 

The  control  of  the  iron-foundries  in  Kent  and  Sussex 
was  of  great  importance  to  the  Parliament — a  fact  to  which 

1  Com.  of  B.  K.  Day  Book,  6th  January  1645.   Gardiner,  Civil  War, 
ch.  xxv. 

2  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  Letter  XVI. 

3  Markham,  The  Great  Lord   Fairfax,  199;   Gardiner,  Civil  War, 
ch.  xxviii. 

4  Harrison,  Cromwell,  p.  84. 


i;6     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

historians  have  not  always  given  its  due  prominence.  At 
this  time  it  appears  that  the  Parliament  was  dependent  for 
its  supply  of  ordnance  on  Mr.  John  Browne  of  Brede,  in 
Sussex,  and  Horsemonden  in  Kent.  The  furnace  at  Brede 
had  formerly  belonged  to  the  Sackvilles;  it  was  sold  about 
1693  by  the  Brownes  to  the  Westerns  of  Essex.1  John 
Browne  was  very  busy  during  the  Civil  War  making  guns 
and  ammunition  both  for  the  army  and  the  fleet.  In  the 
naval  estimates  of  iQth  March  1645,  provision  is  made  for 
the  following  iron  ordnance  and  shot  to  be  supplied  by 
John  Browne  for  "  the  next  summer's  fleet." 

16  demi-culverins  and  10  sakers         .        .        .  ,£428  15  o 

20  saker  drakes  and  4  demi-culverin  cuts  .         .  416    o  o 

10  minion  cuts    .        .        ;       ".   '                      .  115  10  o 

Round  shot  for  the  several  species  of  ordnance  1392  17  2 

Bars  of  iron         .                         ...  29  17  4 

Hand  grenades  for  demi-culverins  and  sakers   .  125     o  o2 

In  June  of  the  same  year  a  letter  from  Thomas  Walsing- 
ham,  of  Kent,  to  Lord  Digby,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Parliament.  Walsingham  strongly  urged  a  Royal  advance 
into  Sussex  and  Kent;  "be  assured,"  he  said,  "of  the 
people  there,  especially  Mr.  Browne,  the  King's  gun- 
founder  who  makes  all  the  cannon  and  bullet  for  the 
Parliament's  service.  My  advice  is  that  his  Majesty  march 
thither  with  4,000  horse  and  foot,  and  ten  days  before  to 
send  intelligence  to  Mr.  Browne,  so  that  he  may  come 
from  London  into  Kent,  where  his  works  are,  and  against 
the  King's  coming  he  will  provide  cannon  and  bullet,  so 
that  his  Majesty  need  not  bring  any  with  him.  The  rebels 
have  no  guns  or  bullets  but  from  him,  and  that  from  hand 
to  mouth,  there  being  none  in  the  Tower,  which  he  is 
forced  to  provide,  else  they  would  put  others  into  his 
works.  He  hath  not  provided  half  so  much  bullets  as  was 

1  S.  A.  C.,  ii,  207. 

2  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dix.     Letters  and  Papers  relating  to 
the  Navy. 


THE  CLUBMEN  177 

required  for  this  expedition.  If  the  King  come  into  these 
counties  he  will  deprive  the  rebels  of  all  the  ammunition 
and  guns  wherewith  they  fight  against  him.  The  King's 
forces  should  bring  along  with  them  musket  moulds  and 
he  will  provide  lead,  and  then  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
the  country  will  rise  generally  and  be  glad  to  express  their 
true  affection  to  his  Majesty.  By  this  means  the  King  will 
not  only  gain  this  country,  but  all  the  works  which  now 
make  the  ammunition  to  fight  against  him,  and  so  deprive 
the  rebels  of  all  their  resources  by  sea  and  land  to  offend 
his  Majesty  any  longer."  l 

The  House  naturally  regarded  this  as  a  serious  matter, 
and  ordered  the  examination  of  Mr.  Browne  and  his  son 
before  a  committee.  John  Browne,  sen.,  deposed  that  he 
dwelt  in  Martin's  Lane,  by  the  Old  Swan,  and  had  recently 
come  out  of  Kent.  He  knew  none  of  the  Walsinghams  but 
Sir  Thomas,  and  did  not  know  whether  he  had  a  son.  He 
denied  having  received  any  letters  from  Mr.  Walsingham, 
and  knew  nothing  of  bringing  any  of  the  King's  party  into 
Kent,  nor  of  any  direction  to  be  given  to  him  when  the 
King  came.  He  had  received  no  letters  or  orders  from  the 
King  or  from  Oxford.2 

John  Browne,  jun.,  deposed  that  he  knew  none  of  the 
Walsinghams.  He  lived  at  Horsemonden,  where  his  father 
and  he  had  three  furnaces  for  the  casting  of  culverins,  etc., 
and  all  kinds  of  round  shot.  His  father  by  letters  every 
week  gave  directions  what  should  be  cast.  What  was  sent 
up  for  the  market  was  sent  to  Richard  Pierson,  in  Philpot 
Lane,  but  if  for  the  Parliament  it  went  through  his  hands 
and  was  delivered  into  the  Tower.  Guns  for  the  market  or 
merchant  were  delivered  to  Mr.  Samuel  Ferrers  at  the 
Half  Moon  in  Thames  Street.3 

A  former  workman  of  Browne  deposed  that  in  1643  he 
sent  to  the  King  four  men  to  cast  ordnance;  and  a  servant 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvii,  136.  2  Ibid.,  134. 

3  Ibid.,  135. 

N 


i/8      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

was  called  to  testify  that  John  Browne  the  elder  was  with 
the  King  when  he  went  down  to  the  House  to  arrest  the 
five  members.1 

Mr.  Browne,  re-examined,  asserted  that  two  or  three  years 
before,  trade  being  slack,  he  had  dismissed  several  of  his 
servants,  and  one  of  them  for  misappropriating  money. 
He  seems  to  have  cleared  himself,  for  not  long  after  it  was 
ordered  that  the  Commissioners  of  the  navy  do  peruse  the 
proposals  made  by  John  Browne,  senior,  gunfounder,  for 
the  furnishing  of  ordnance  for  three  frigates  intended  to  be 
built,  confer  with  him  and  report  whether  in  their  opinion 
the  prices  he  asked  or  what  others  should  be  given  for  the 
pieces.* 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvii,  151. 

2  Ibid.)  dxii,  Navy  papers. 


CHAPTER  XI 

STEPHEN  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  ASHBURNHAM 

WHILE  these  events  were  taking  place  at  home,  a 
man  of  Sussex  birth  was  conducting  abroad  a  series 
of  difficult  and  delicate  negotiations  on  behalf  of  the  King, 
which  not  only  failed  in  their  object,  but  in  the  result 
served  to  discredit  the  Royal  cause  in  the  eyes  of  friends 
and  foes  alike.  Nothing  revealed  more  plainly  Charles's 
incapacity  to  understand  the  feelings  and  temper  of  Eng- 
lishmen than  his  continual  efforts  to  obtain  foreign  aid  to 
bolster  up  his  throne.  The  landing  of  a  horde  of  ruffians 
from  Germany,  which  he  and  his  queen  made  such  frantic 
attempts  to  procure,  would  have  surely  been  the  occasion 
of  a  sinking  of  domestic  strife,  and  the  united  uprising  of 
all  men  in  defence  of  their  homes,  their  goods,  and  their 
women. 

Wars  and  revolutions  offer  many  opportunities  of  ad- 
vancement to  able  men.  The  commercial  avenues  to  wealth 
and  distinction  common  in  our  own  day  did  not  exist,  or 
hardly  existed,  in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  usual  path 
to  eminence  lay  through  the  Church,  the  law,  politics,  or 
the  arnw  In  the  early  years  of  the  century  there  were 
born  ..  .e  Rev.  Stephen  Goffe,  rector  of  Stanmer,  himself 
"  a  very  severe  Puritan," l  three  sons,  who  all  attained  some 
celebrity,  but  by  very  different  routes.  The  youngest, 
William,  was  the  best  known.  Apprenticed  to  a  London 
drysalter,  he  joined  the  Parliamentary  army,  and  soon 

1  Wood,  Alhenae  Oxonienses,  ii,  26. 
179 


i8o     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

became  a  prominent  soldier.  He  was  named  one  of  the 
King's  judges  and  signed  his  death  warrant.  His  subse- 
quent career  will  be  dealt  with  later.  The  second  son,  John, 
went  to  Oxford  and  became  a  fellow  of  Magdalen.  In 
1634  he  was  accused  before  the  deputy-steward  of  the 
University  of  having  killed  a  member  of  his  College,  but 
was  acquitted.1  In  1642  he  was  presented  to  the  living  of 
Hackington,  near  Canterbury,  from  which  he  was  ejected 
the  following  year  for  refusing  to  take  the  Covenant,  and 
thrown  into  the  county  prison  at  Canterbury.2  Through 
the  influence  of  his  brother,  the  regicide,  he  was  in  1652 
inducted  into  the  living  of  Norton,  near  Sittingbourne.  In 
1660  he  was  restored  to  the  vicarage  of  Hackington.  He 
enjoyed  a  reputation  as  an  able  scholar  and  a  thoughtful 
writer,  but  no  works  of  importance  by  him  are  known. 

The  eldest  son,  Stephen,  born  in  1605,  was  educated  at 
Merton  College,  Oxford.  After  taking  his  degree  he  went 
to  the  Low  Countries  as  chaplain  to  the  regiment  of 
Colonel  Horace  Vere,  and  entered  at  Leyden  University 
in  1633.  Returning  to  England  he  was  appointed  one  of 
Charles  I's  chaplains  through  the  influence  of  Henry 
Jermyn,  and  took  the  degree  of  D.D.  in  1636.  When  war 
broke  out  he  followed  the  fortunes  of  the  King,  and  became 
one  of  his  most  trusted  agents.  "  A  dexterous  man  too, 
and  could  comply  with  all  men  in  all  the  acts  of  good 
fellowship." 3  In  August  1642  he  was  empowered  by  warrant 
issued  at  York  to  collect  and  give  receipts  for  money  or 
plate  given  or  tendered  for  the  King's  service.4  In  1644 
Charles  conceived  the  project  of  a  match  between  his  son, 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  then  only  fourteen  years  of  age,  and 
the  youthful  daughter  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  as  part  of  a 
scheme  for  obtaining  assistance  from  the  Continent  against 
the  Parliament,  and  Dr.  Goffe  was  sent  to  Holland  to  carry 

1  Wharton,  Laud,  p.  71.  2  D.  N.  B. 

3  Clarendon,  Hist.,  xi. 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  47. 


GOFFE  AND  ASHBURNHAM  181 

on  the  negotiations.    The  autograph  letter  of  introduction 
from  Charles  to  the  Prince  was  as  follows: 

Oxford,  24th  May  1644. 
"  MON  COUSIN, 

"  L'affaire  dont  ce  porteur,  le  docteur  Goffe,  va  in- 
struict,  vous  donnera  des  preuves  de  1'afifection  que  j'ay 
pour  ce  quis  vous  regarde  j'ay  faict  choix  de  ceste  personne 
a  cest  employ,  non  seulement  pour  1'avoir  reconneu  abile  et 
fidelle,  mais  a  cause  aussy  que  sa  condition  rendra  sa  n6goci- 
ation  moins  suspecte  le  secrett  d'icelle  estant  pour  le  present 
tout  a  faict  ne"cessaire,  tant  a  mes  interests  qu'au  vostres. 
Je  vous  prie  de  luy  donner  parfaicte  croiance,  particuliere- 
ment  quand  il  vous  asseurera  que  je  suis  veVitablement 
vostre  bien  bon  affection^ 

"  COUSIN  &  AMY." » 

Charles's  project  was  that  the  marriage  should  form  a 
link  between  England,  France,  and  the  Dutch  Republic. 
The  Prince  of  Orange  was  to  give  general  military  assist- 
ance to  France,  and  to  furnish  fifteen  or  twenty  ships  of 
war  for  two  months,  and  a  sufficient  number  of  other 
vessels  to  bring  over  to  England  4,000  French  foot  and 
2,000  French  horse.  He  was  also  to  pay  his  daughter's 
portion  in  ready  money.2  No  great  progress  was  made  with 
these  negotiations  in  1644,  but  at  the  beginning  of  1645 
they  were  renewed  with  great  vigour.  The  chief  difficulty 
perhaps  was  that  the  Prince  was  not  an  absolute  monarch, 
but  the  first  magistrate  and  generalissimo  of  a  republic 
which  observed  a  strict  neutrality  as  regards  the  contend- 
ing forces  in  England.  A  long  correspondence  took  place 
between  Dr.  Goffe,  at  the  Hague,  and  Lord  Jermyn,  who 
was  with  the  Queen  at  Paris.  The  letters,  which  were  written 
in  cipher,  were  transcribed  by  Jermyn,  and  transmitted  to 

1  Preserved  in  the  collection  of  autograph  letters  and  historical 
documents  of  the  late  Mr.  Alfred  Morrison. 

2  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  xvii. 


182     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Lord  Digby  in  England.1  Many  of  them  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Parliament  when  Digby  was  defeated  at  Sherburn  in 
Yorkshire  in  October  1645. 

Henrietta  Maria  was  now  endeavouring  to  carry  through 
a  scheme  suggested  by  Cardinal  Mazarin,  to  obtain  the 
assistance  of  the  Duke  of  Lorraine.  The  Duke,  who  had 
been  expelled  from  France  by  Richelieu,  had  transferred  his 
sword  to  the  service  of  the  Emperor,  and  had  fought  with 
bravery  and  distinction  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  adven- 
turers who  subsisted  on  plunder  alone.2  If  the  Duke  could 
be  got  to  listen  to  Henrietta  Maria's  overtures,  France 
would  be  freed  from  his  troublesome  presence  on  her 
borders,  and  Mazarin  would  have  rendered  effective  assist- 
ance to  Charles.  The  Duke's  answer  was  favourable;  he 
was  ready  to  enter  Charles's  service  with  10,000  men.  Goffe 
was  therefore  instructed  to  revive  the  marriage  project,  and 
to  endeavour  to  obtain  from  the  Prince  of  Orange  the  use 
of  sufficient  shipping  to  carry  over  this  army,  and  of  a  fleet 
of  warships  to  be  employed  in  an  attack  upon  the  Parlia- 
mentary navy  in  the  Downs  or  in  the  Medway.  The  Sussex 
coast  was  considered  favourable  for  the  landing  of  foreign 
troops.  In  one  of  the  King's  letters  taken  at  Naseby,  dated 
Oxford,  3<Dth  March  1645,  he  mentions  the  ease  with  which 
they  might  "  land  at  divers  fit  and  safe  places  of  landing 
upon  the  west  coasts,  besides  the  ports  under  my  obedience, 
as  Selsey  near  Chichester."  And  Hastings  was  suggested 
as  the  point  at  which  the  French  troops  the  Queen  was 
endeavouring  to  raise  might  be  disembarked.3 

This  scheming  continued  throughout  the  whole  of  1645 
and  the  early  part  of  1646.  The  Parliament  was  kept  well 
informed  by  its  agents  in  Paris,  Robert  Wright  and  Sir 
George  Gerard,  of  what  was  going  on.  In  December  and 
January,  the  former  wrote  to  Oliver  St.  John  with  reference 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  1644-5,  Preface,  xv. 

2  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  xxvii. 

3  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  157. 


GOFFE  AND  ASHBURNHAM  183 

to  the  Queen's  plans.  The  Prince  of  Orange  was  still  hold- 
ing out  hopes  to  Dr.  Goffe  that  he  would  transport  the 
mercenaries  to  England  in  Dutch  shipping.  Wright  urged 
that  above  everything  the  Parliament  should  endeavour  to 
get  possession  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  to  effect  which  even 
£100,000  would  be  well  spent.  General  Goring  might  be 
wrought  upon ;  both  he  and  his  father,  the  Earl  of  Nor- 
wich, were  much  dissatisfied  with  the  Queen  and  she  with 
them.  Goring  was  at  this  time  in  Paris,  ostensibly  to  re- 
cover from  a  wound,  but  in  reality  in  the  hope  of  obtain- 
ing command  of  the  French  troops,  of  which  a  first  de- 
tachment was  shortly  to  be  shipped  to  Newhaven.  "  Gen- 
eral Goring  having  now  past  his  cure  will  make  his  flourish 
for  twenty  or  thirty  days  in  Paris,  and  so  return  for  the 
west." * 

If  Charles  thought  he  was  going  to  get  the  best  of  a 
bargain  with  the  Dutch,  he  ignored  the  national  character,  as 
expressed  in  a  time-honoured  distich.  Self-interest  not  only 
was,  but  was  avowed,  the  mainspring  of  Dutch  diplomacy. 
A  few  years  later,  John  Evelyn  wrote  in  his  diary:  "  Dined 
with  the  Dutch  Ambassador.  He  did  in  a  manner  acknow- 
ledge that  his  nation  mind  only  their  own  profit,  do  nothing 
out  of  gratitude,  but  collaterally  as  it  relates  to  their  gain 
or  security;  and  therefore  the  English  were  to  look  for 
nothing  of  assistance  to  the  banished  King.  This  was  to 
me  no  very  grateful  discourse,  though  an  ingenuous  con- 
fession." 2 

Some  of  Goffe's  letters  contain  passages  descriptive  of 
persons  who  figured  in  the  Court  life  of  the  period.  In 
one  of  these  is  a  pleasant  reference  to  the  Prince  of  Orange's 
children:  "the  young  Prince  is  worthy  of  all  honour  and 
kindness  from  their  Majesties,  and  grows  a  very  proper 
and  lovely  person,  as  does  Mademoiselle,  more  now  than 
at  first,  perhaps  difficulty  adds  beauty,  but  truly  she  has  a 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  323,  335. 
a  Evelyn's  Diary,  isth  November  1659. 


1 84     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

perfect  good  shape,  white  skin,  excellently  well-fashioned 
hands,  neck  and  breast,  the  face  is  not  ill  indeed,  all  but 
very  good  for  many  proportions  there." l 

All  the  negotiations  came  to  nothing.  Perhaps  the  Prince 
was  not  very  desirous  in  view  of  Charles's  waning  fortunes 
to  mate  his  daughter  with  the  Prince  of  Wales ;  and  to  the 
other  side  it  became  plain  that  any  sum  which  he  could  be 
expected  to  give  his  daughter  would  not  go  far  in  supply- 
ing the  sinews  of  war.  So  Charles,  Prince  of  Wales,  re- 
mained a  bachelor  until  he  married  Catherine  of  Braganca 
seventeen  years  later.  And  the  Dutch  statesmen  set  their 
face  strongly  against  the  proposal  that  the  Duke  of  Lor- 
raine's army  should  pass  through  Dutch  territory  and  be 
transported  to  England  in  Dutch  shipping.  Sussex  and 
England  were  relieved  from  all  fear  of  an  invasion  by  a 
pack  of  German  wolves,  and  the  discredit  of  the  King  was 
deepened.  "  Irish,  French,  Dutch  or  Lorrainers  were  all 
one  to  Charles  if  only  they  would  help  him  to  regain  his 
crown.  Born  of  a  Scottish  father  and  a  Danish  mother, 
with  a  grandmother  who  was  half  French  by  birth  and  al- 
together French  by  breeding,  with  a  French  wife,  with 
German  nephews  and  a  Dutch  son-in-law,  Charles  had 
nothing  in  him  in  touch  with  English  national  feeling." 2 

The  subsequent  career  of  Dr.  Stephen  Goffe  may  be 
briefly  noted  here.  Having  returned  to  England,  and  being 
suspected  of  privity  with  the  King's  escape  from  Hampton 
Court,  he  was  arrested  and  imprisoned,  but  found  means  to 
escape.  While  the  King  was  at  Carisbrooke,  he  employed 
Goffe  to  negotiate  with  the  Scottish  Commissioners  with  a 
view  to  their  receding  from  the  demand  that  he  should  take 
the  Covenant.3  After  the  King's  execution,  Goffe  retired  to 
Paris,  where  he  became  a  Catholic  and  chaplain  to  Henri- 
etta Maria.  He  rose  to  be  the  Superior  of  the  Fathers  of 
the  Oratory,  and  died  in  their  house  in  1681.  He  had 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvii,  37. 

2  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  xxix.  3  D.  N.  B. 


GOFFE  AND  ASHBURNHAM  185 

wandered  far  from  his  early  Puritan  up-bringing  in  the 
rectory  of  Stanmer. 

From  the  tortuous  and  unpatriotic  intrigues  of  this 
diplomatic  churchman  we  may  turn  with  relief  to  the  ser- 
vice to  his  king  of  John  Ashburnham,  scion  of  a  house 
which  perhaps  more  fully  than  any  other  represents  the 
ancienne  noblesse  of  Sussex.  Son  and  heir  of  Sir  John  Ash- 
burnham of  Ashburnham,  he  was  appointed  groom  of  the 
bed-chamber  to  Charles  I  in  1628.  They  had  been  on 
intimate  terms  previously,  for  in  a  letter  written  the  year 
before,  the  King  styles  him  "  Jack,"  as  he  continued  to  do 
through  life.1  To  the  Long  Parliament  he  was  returned  as 
member  for  Hastings,  and  Clarendon  informs  us  that  he 
was  the  person  who  reported  to  the  King  what  passed  in 
the  debates.  On  5th  February  1643  he  was  discharged  and 
disabled  from  being  any  longer  a  member  of  the  House, 
for  his  adherence  to  the  King's  cause;  and  on  I4th  Sept- 
ember it  was  ordered  that  his  estate  be  forthwith  sequest- 
ered.2 In  1644  he  was  nominated  one  of  the  King's  com- 
missioners for  the  Treaty  of  Uxbridge.  During  the  war  he 
acted  as  the  King's  treasurer,  styled  "  Our  Treasurer  at 
Wars."  In  1646,  when  the  Parliamentary  armies  were 
closing  on  Oxford,  "it  was  judged  necessary  by  all  con- 
sidering men  (as  well  for  the  advantage  of  that  faithful 
remnant  within  that  place,  as  for  His  Majesty's  safety)  that 
His  sacred  Person  should  not  be  liable  to  the  success  of  an 
assault  (for  Conditions  or  Treaties  seemed  vain  to  be  ex- 
pected where  the  King  was)  but  that  some  expedient  should 
be  found  by  escape  from  thence  to  save  His  life,  though 
nothing  could  be  thought  on  in  order  to  His  flight,  that  in 
point  of  danger  kept  not  equal  pace  with  the  hazard  of  His 
stay."  3  The  courses  open  to  him  were  to  go  to  Newark,  to 
the  Scottish  army,  where  he  might  be  compelled  to  embrace 
Presbyterianism ;  to  betake  himself  to  London  where  he 

1  Lower's  Worthies  of  Sussex,  p.  288.  *  Commons'  Journals. 

3  Ashburnham's  Narrative,  p.  64. 


186     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

would  have  to  reckon  with  the  Independents;  or  to  endeav- 
our to  escape  beyond  the  seas.  But  Oxford  must  be  left  at 
all  hazards. 

Still  apparently  undecided,  at  three  o'clock  on  the  morn- 
ing of  27th  April  the  King  set  out  on  his  humiliating 
journey.  Though  perhaps  determined  to  go  to  the  Scots, 
he  informed  his  council  of  his  intention  to  go  to  London. 
With  his  hair  and  beard  close  trimmed,  and  disguised  as  a 
servant,  he  passed  over  Magdalen  bridge  at  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  in  company  with  John  Ashburnham  and 
Dr.  Hudson,  one  of  his  chaplains.  "Farewell,  Harry!" 
called  out  the  Governor,  Sir  Thomas  Glemham,  as  he  closed 
the  gates  behind  him,1  and  the  party  took  the  London  road. 
At  Hillingdon  they  halted  three  hours,  Charles  perhaps 
still  nursing  the  vain  hope  that  some  encouraging  message 
would  come  to  him  from  the  City,  if  the  City  knew  what 
was  happening.  But  no  message  came.  Abandoning  all 
idea  of  entering  London,  Charles  turned  his  horse's  head 
northward,  and  rode  through  Harrow  and  St.  Albans  to 
Wheathampstead,  where  he  halted  for  the  night.  The 
guards  on  the  road  had  been  kept  in  good  humour  by  small 
presents  of  money,  and  satisfied  by  the  exhibition  of  a  pass 
signed  by  Fairfax  in  favour  of  some  Royalist  who  was  to 
go  to  London  to  make  his  composition.2  Near  St.  Albans 
the  party  was  alarmed  by  the  clatter  of  horses'  hoofs,  and 
feared  pursuit,  but  it  proved  to  be  merely  "  a  drunken  man, 
well-horsed,  riding  violently." 3 

To  this  pathetic  pass  had  twenty  years  of  sovereignty 
and  four  years  of  war  with  half  his  subjects  brought  the 
King.  Born  to  a  slightly  lower  station  he  might  have  lived 
admired  and  respected,  a  great  noble  of  dignified  presence 
and  carriage,  a  judicious  patron  of  the  arts,  a  model  hus- 
band and  father,  his  faults  of  indecision  and  duplicity  never 

1  Gary,  Memorials  of  the  Civil  War,  i,  12. 

2  Gardiner,  Great  Civil  War,  ch.  xli. 

3  Kingston's  Herts  during  the  Civil  War,  p.  61. 


GOFFE  AND  ASHBURNHAM  187 

leaping  to  the  light;  omnium  consensu  capax  imperil  nisi 
imperasset.  But  Nature  had  not  fitted  him  to  ape  with 
success  the  masterful  Tudors ;  nor  were  the  times  propitious 
for  such  endeavours.  And  now,  beaten  in  the  field,  involved 
in  a  web  of  fruitless  scheming,  he  had  taken  the  road  which 
was  to  lead  him  to  the  scaffold. 

Disregarding  Ashburnham's  advice  to  take  shipping  from 
Lynn  to  Newcastle,  Charles,  after  some  negotiations  with 
the  Scots  through  Hudson  and  Montreuil,  the  French  am- 
bassador, entered  the  Scottish  camp  on  5th  May,  and 
refusing  to  comply  with  Lothian's  demand  that  he  should 
sign  the  Covenant,  was  made  a  prisoner.  Ashburnham  was 
allowed  to  escape  to  Scotland,  whence  he  made  his  way  to 
France. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  the  tangled  proceedings  of 
the  next  fifteen  months  during  which  Charles  was  surren- 
dered by  the  Scots  to  the  Parliamentary  Commissioners, 
conducted  by  them  to  Holmby  House,  taken  charge  of  by 
Joyce's  troopers  and  brought  to  Hampton  Court,  while  the 
army  occupied  London.  Through  the  interest  of  Sir  Edward 
Ford  with  Ireton  and  Cromwell,  who  was  now  doing  his 
utmost  to  arrange  terms  with  the  King,  Ashburnham  was 
allowed  to  rejoin  him  at  Hampton  Court.  The  King  had 
written  from  Newcastle,  whither  the  Scots  had  taken  him, 
to  the  Queen  on  i$th  May  1646:  "  I  owe  Jack  nine  thous- 
and two  hundred  pounds,  which  I  earnestly  recommend 
thou  wouldst  assist  him  in  for  his  repayment."1  On  nth 
November  the  King,  accompanied  by  Ashburnham,  William 
Legge,  and  Sir  John  Berkeley,  escaped  unnoticed  from 
Hampton  Court,  and  two  days  later  threw  himself  on  the 
mercy  of  Robert  Hammond,  Governor  of  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
Ashburnham  and  Berkeley  had  been  sent  forward  from 
Titchfield  to  sound  Hammond,  and  though  they  obtained 
no  satisfactory  assurances  from  him  they  brought  him  to 

1  Ashburnhanvs  Narrative,  ii,  138. 


i88     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  King.  A  vessel  had  been  ordered  from  Southampton  to 
convey  the  King,  if  necessary,  to  France,  but  owing  to  an 
embargo  placed  on  all  shipping  as  soon  as  his  escape  was 
discovered,  it  did  not  arrive.  The  King  was  much  upset  at 
his  place  of  retreat  being  revealed  to  Hammond,  and  spoke 
to  Ashburnham  "  with  a  very  severe  and  reserved  counten- 
ance, the  first  of  that  kind  to  me,"  as  he  says  in  his  narra- 
tive.1 Ashburnham  promptly  offered  to  murder  Hammond 
and  the  captain  he  had  brought  with  him ;  but  the  King, 
after  "  walking  some  few  turns  in  the  room,"  declined  this 
expedient,  and  decided  to  go  with  Hammond  to  Caris- 
brooke.  Several  attempts  at  escape  thence  were  made: 
Ashburnham  left  the  island  and  kept  a  barque  in  readiness 
at  Hastings  for  some  weeks ; 2  but  they  all  proved  fruitless, 
and  the  King  remained  a  prisoner. 

Various  friendly  persons  in  Sussex  were  prepared  for 
possible  events.  Mr.  Wilson  of  Eastbourne  Place  "was 
entrusted  with  the  important  secret  of  what  was  intended. 
A  letter  was  sent  to  him,  by  an  express  from  the  Earl  of 
Dorset,  with  a  little  picture  of  the  King  enclosed  (for  fear 
of  discovery)  informing  him  that  he  should  prepare  to 
receive  the  original ;  to  which  he  returned  this  loyal  answer, 
that  he  would  do  it  with  his  life  and  fortune." 3 

Hastings  appears  at  this  time  to  have  offered  advan- 
tages to  refugees.  About  the  time  that  the  King  left 
Hampton  Court,  the  Marquis  of  Ormonde,  who  had  been 
concerned  in  the  negotiations,  and  now  found  the  country 
too  hot  to  hold  him,  escaped  from  Hastings  to  Dieppe. 
"  He  in  disguise,  and  without  being  attended  by  more  than 
one  servant,  rode  into  Sussex  and  in  an  obscure  and  un- 
guarded port  or  harbour  put  himself  on  board  a  shallop 
which  safely  transported  him  into  Normandy."  4  This  ob- 
scurity later  attracted  the  notice  of  Parliament.  On  22nd 
August  1648,  a  "clerk  of  the  passage"  was  appointed  at 

1  Ashburnham's  Narrative,  ii,  117.  3  Ibid.,  p.  128. 

3  Wilson  MSS. ;  S.  A.  C.,  xi,  28.  *  Clarendon,  x,  153. 


GOFFE  AND  ASHBURNHAM  189 

Hastings,  the  House  "  having  information  that  dangerous 
persons  pass  that  way  into  foreign  parts." ' 

At  the  Restoration  Ashburnham,  who  meantime  had 
suffered  much  hardship,  including  "five  years  spent  in 
close  imprisonment  in  London,  and  three  banishments  to 
Guernsey  Castle,  the  cause  being  for  sending  money  to 
His  Majesty,"  was  restored  to  his  position  of  groom  of  the 
bed-chamber. 

The  estate  of  Ashburnham,  which,  according  to  a 
picturesque  tradition,  had  been  held  by  the  family  from 
Saxon  times,  and  certainly  for  many  generations,  had  been 
lost  by  his  father,  Sir  John.  By  a  fortunate  marriage  he 
was  enabled  to  repurchase  it.  In  1629  he  married  Frances, 
only  daughter  and  heiress  of  William  Holland  of  West 
Burton  in  Sussex,  nephew  and  chief  heir  of  William 
Holland,  Alderman  of  Chichester,  who  had  amassed  a  con- 
siderable fortune  in  trade  there,  and  was  godfather  of 
William  Cawley  the  regicide.2  The  loss  and  recovery  of 
the  estate  is  mentioned  on  the  monument  of  John  Ash- 
burnham in  Ashburnham  church,  which  he  rebuilt:  "  Here 
lyes  in  the  Vault  beneath  John  Ashburnham  Esq  of  this 
place  sonn  to  the  unfortunate  person  Sr  John  Ashburnham 
whose  good  nature  and  frank  disposition  towards  two 
friends  in  being  deeply  engaged  for  them  necessitated  him 
to  sell  this  place  (in  the  family  long  before  the  Conquest) 
and  all  the  estate  he  had  elsewhere,  not  leaving  to  his  wife 
and  six  children  the  least  subsistence  which  is  not  inserted 
to  the  least  disadvantage  to  his  memory  (God  forbid  it 
should  be  understood  to  be  a  charge  of  disrespect  upon 
him)  but  to  give  God  the  prayse,  who  soe  suddenly  pro- 
vided both  for  his  wife  and  children  as  that  within  less 
than  two  years  after  the  death  of  the  said  Sr  John,  there 
was  not  any  of  them  but  was  in  a  condition  rather  to  be 
helpful  to  others  than  to  want  support  themselves.  May 
God  be  pleased  to  add  this  blessing  to  his  posterity  that 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dxvi,  81.  2  S.  A.  C.,  xliii,  60. 


190     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

they  may  never  be  unmindful  of  the  great  things  He 
hath  done  for  them.  .  .  .  The  said  Mr  John  Ashburnham 
married  the  daughter  and  heire  of  William  Holland  of 
Westburton  in  this  County  Esqre,  who  lyes  also  here 
interred,  and  by  whom  he  had  these  eight  children.  She 
made  the  first  stepp  towards  the  recovery  of  some  part  of 
the  inheritance  wasted  by  the  said  Sir  John,  for  she  sould 
her  whole  estate  to  lay  out  the  money  in  this  place.  She 
lived  in  great  reputation  for  piety  and  discretion  and  died 
in  the  seven  and  thirtieth  yeare  of  her  age." l 

The  matter  of  the  escape  of  Charles  from  Hampton 
Court  and  his  delivery  to  Colonel  Hammond  caused  a  good 
deal  of  controversy  and  recrimination.  Ashburnham  especi- 
ally was  accused  of  having  betrayed  him,  an  accusation 
from  which  he  was  freely  absolved  by  Charles  II.  His 
descendant,  George,  third  Earl  of  Ashburnham,  considering 
that  some  statements  of  Clarendon  threw  doubts  on  his 
honesty,  wrote:  "A  vindication  of  his  character  and  con- 
duct from  the  misrepresentations  of  Lord  Clarendon."2 
Samuel  Pepys,  writing  in  1665,  speaks  of  "my  Lord 
Barkeley,  one  to  whom  only,  with  Jacke  Ashburne  and 
Colonel  Legg,  the  King's  removal  to  the  Isle  of  Wight 
from  Hampton  Court  was  communicated;  and  (though 
betrayed  by  their  knavery,  or  at  best  by  their  ignorance, 
insomuch  that  they  have  all  solemnly  charged  one  another 
with  their  failures  therein,  and  have  been  at  daggers- 
drawing  publickly  about  it),  yet  now  none  greater  friends  in 
the  world."3 

A  noticeable  feature  of  the  Civil  War  was  the  division  of 
families;  near  relations  not  uncommonly  took  different 
sides.  Perhaps  at  the  outset  the  dividing  line  was  a  thin 
one ;  but  the  first  step  once  taken,  the  subtle  influence  of 
party  tended  to  widen  it.  In  Sussex  such  leading  families 
as  the  Gorings  and  the  Ashburnhams  furnished  recruits  to 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxxii,  19.  2  London,  1830. 

3  Pepys'  Diary,  ed.  Wheatley,  v,  162. 


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LKTTER   FROM  COLONEL  MORLEY  TO  SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION. 


GOFFE  AND  ASHBURNHAM  191 

both  parties.  Colonel  Anthony  Stapley,  member  for  the 
county  throughout  the  war,  and  one  of  the  King's  judges, 
was  married  to  a  sister  of  Lord  Goring,  the  great  Cavalier 
leader.  Sir  Edward  Ford,  the  Royalist  High  Sheriff,  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  brother-in-law  to  Ireton,  Cromwell's  son- 
in-law.  And  it  was  not  always  the  case  that  political 
division  sapped  family  affection.  As  an  instance  of  the 
entire  absence  of  anything  like  bitterness  of  feeling  in  a 
large  group  of  men  and  women,  amongst  whom  were  warm 
partisans,  Mr.  Gardiner  quotes  from  a  letter  of  the  Royalist 
Edmund  Verney,  to  his  brother,  the  Roundhead  Sir  Ralph : 
"  Although  I  would  willingly  lose  my  right  hand  that  you 
had  gone  the  other  way,  yet  I  will  never  consent  that  this 
dispute  shall  make  a  quarrel  between  us.  I  pray  God 
grant  a  sudden  and  firm  peace,  that  we  may  safely  meet  in 
person  as  well  as  affection.  Though  I  am  tooth  and  nail 
for  the  King's  cause,  and  shall  endure  so  to  the  death, 
whatever  his  fortune  be;  yet,  sweet  brother,  let  not  this  my 
opinion — for  it  is  guided  by  my  conscience — nor  any  other 
report  which  you  can  hear  of  me  cause  a  diffidence  of  my 
true  love  to  you." l 

And  not  only  family  affection,  but  the  ties  of  friendship 
were  sometimes  strong  enough  to  survive  the  estrangements 
of  war.  A  number  of  letters  which  passed  between  the 
Royalist  Sir  William  Campion,  and  Colonel  Morley  of 
Glynde,  and  are  now  preserved  at  Danny,  the  seat  of  Sir 
William's  descendant,  offer  a  pleasing  picture  of  the  kindly 
feeling  of  old  friends  who  found  themselves  on  opposite 
sides. 

COLONEL  HERBERT  MORLEY  TO  SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION 

July  23rd  1645. 
"  SIR, 

"  Old   acquaintance  needs    no  apology.     All  your 
Sussex  friends  are  in  health,  and  continue  their  worthy 

1  Civil  War,  ch.  iv. 


192     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

affections  towards  you,  especially  valewing  your  welfare 
with  theire  owne.  I  could  impart  more,  but  letters  are 
subject  to  miscarriage,  therefore  I  reserve  myself  to  a  more 
fit  opportunity.  If  you  please,  in  return  hereof,  to  send  me 
a  character,  I  shall  gladly  send  in  cipher  what  I  am  un- 
willing to  delineate.  If  a  conference  might  be  had,  I  con- 
ceive it  would  be  most  for  the  satisfaction  of  us  both,  to 
prevent  any  possible  hazard  of  your  person.  If  you  please 
to  let  your  lady  meet  me  at  Watford,  or  Berkhampsteed, 
or  come  hither,  I  will  procure  her  a  pass,  and  make  it 
evidently  appear  that  I  am  your  most  affectionate  friend, 

HERBERT  MORLEY. 

SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION  TO  COLONEL  MORLEY 

August  ist  1645. 

"  SIR, 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  of  my  friends  in  Sussex.  For 
any  business  you  have  to  impart  to  me,  I  have  that  con- 
fidence in  you,  by  reason  of  our  former  acquaintance,  that 
I  should  not  make  any  scruple  to  send  my  wife  to  the 
places  mentioned;  but  the  truth  is,  she  is  at  present  soe 
neare  her  time  for  lying  downe,  for  she  expects  to  be  brought 
to  bed  within  less  than  fourteen  days,  that  she  is  altogether 
unfit  to  take  soe  long  a  journey.  .  .  .  Assure  yourself  that 
there  is  none  living  that  shall  be  more  glad  to  find  out  a  way 
to  serve  you,  than,  Sir, 

"  Your  true  friend  and  servant, 

"  WILLIAM  CAMPION." 

COLONEL  MORLEY  TO  SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION 

"  SIR, 

"  I  beg  I  may  love  you  without  offence,  although  at 
Borstall,1  and  presume  so  far  on  our  old  friendship,  as  to 

1  Sir  William  Campion  was  in  command  of  the  garrison  at  Borstall 
House,  in  Buckinghamshire,  which  he  defended  with  great  resolution 
against  the  Parliamentary  forces. 


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LETTER  FROM  COLONEL  MORLEY  TO  SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION, 


GOFFE  AND  ASHBURNHAM  193 

assure  myself  you  stand  so  much  upon  your  reputation,  that 
you  will  use  the  bearer  hereof,  being  an  honest  man  whom 
your  friends  have  persuaded  to  be  their  messenger,  to 
convey  their  respects  to  you.  I  shall  only  desire  you  to 
send  your  ladye  speedily  among  your  friends  here,  not 
knowing  how  soon  Oxford  and  your  garrisom  may  be 
blocked  up.  I  desire  you  will  burn  my  letter  as  soon  as 
you  have  read  it,  lest  hereafter  it  may  fall  into  such  hands 
as  may  question  me  for  holding  correspondence  with  you. 
In  what  I  can  serve  you,  assure  yourself  you  may  command 

"  Your  affectionate  servant 

"  HERBERT  MORLEY." 

The  Lady  Campion  referred  to  in  the  above  correspond- 
ence was  Grace,  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas  Parker  of  Ratton, 
Sussex.  The  Campions  were  not  at  that  time  in  possession 
of  Danny,  but  resided  at  Combwell  in  Kent,  on  the  borders 
of  Sussex.  By  a  curious  coincidence,  Sir  William  was 
killed  in  a  sortie  during  the  siege  of  Colchester  in  1648, 
when  George  Goring,  Baron  Goring  of  Hurstpierpoint,  and 
Earl  of  Norwich,  was  in  command.  The  Earl  was  son  of 
George  Goring  of  Ovingdean,  the  builder  of  Danny,  and 
was  at  that  time,  or  had  been  very  lately,  its  possessor. 

Two  years  before  his  death,  when  Sir  William  was  de- 
fending Borstall,  he  had  a  pleasant  exchange  of  courtesies 
with  the  Parliamentary  officer,  Major  Shilbourne,  which 
recalls  Waller's  present  of  sack  to  Crawford  at  Alton  in 
1643. 

"  FROM  MAJOR  SHILBOURNE  TO  SIR  WILLIAM 

CAMPION 
"  SIR, 

"  I  received  a  message  by  my  trumpet,  whereby  I 
understand  you  desire  a  rundlet  of  sack.  Sir,  I  assure  you 
there  is  none  in  this  towne  worth  sending  to  soe  gallant  an 
enemy  as  yourselfe,  but  I  have  sent  to  London  for  a  rund- 

O 


194     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

let  of  the  best  that  can  be  got,  and  so  soone  as  it  comes  to 
my  hands  I  shall  present  it  to  you.  For  the  meantime, 
Col.  Theed  hath  sent  you  a  taste  of  the  best  that  is  in 
Brill.  I  should  be  very  happy  if  wee  might  meete  and 
drink  a  bottle  or  two  of  wine  with  you.  If  it  be  not 
allowed  your  condition  to  honour  me  with  soe  high  a 
favour,  the  civilities  I  have  received  engage  me  to  acknow- 
ledge myself  to  be, 

"  Sir,  your  servant, 

"  THOS.  SHILBOURNE." 

Brill,  1 4th  April  1646. 

"  SIR  WILLIAM  CAMPION  TO  MAJOR  SHILBOURNE 

"  I  did  tell  your  trumpet,  that  if  you  would  send  us 
some  sacke,  we  would  drinke  your  health;  but  you  have 
expressed  yourselfe  soe  faire,  that  I  am  afraid  I  shall  not 
suddenly  be  able  to  requite  it,  neverthelesse  I  shall  let  slip 
noe  opportunity  for  meeting  of  you.  I  should  be  glad  to 
embrace  an  occasion,  but  by  reason  of  the  condition  wee 
are  in,  I  know  it  would  not  be  consonant  with  myne 
honour.  .  .  .  But,  if  you  please  to  favour  me  with  your 
company  here  (which  I  am  confident  may  be  done  without 
any  prejudice  at  all  to  either)  you  and  your  friends  shall 
receive  the  best  entertainment  the  garrison  can  afforde, 
and  a  safe  returne,  and  you  shall  much  oblige  him  who  is 
desirous  to  be  esteemed  of  you,  as 

"  Sir,  your  servant, 

"  W.  C" 

This  correspondence  is  not  only  interesting  in  itself,  but 
valuable  as  evidence  that  after  the  stress  of  nearly  four 
years'  war,  gentlemen  on  either  side  were  still  disposed  to 
address  each  other  in  a  friendly,  even  sometimes  a  frolic- 
some, spirit.  The  fact  that  as  far,  at  all  events,  as  the 
leading  officers  were  concerned  the  war  was  not  a  war  of 
classes;  that  they  were  drawn  in  the  main  from  the  same 


GOFFE  AND  ASHBURNHAM  195 

social  stratum,  often  from  the  same  groups  of  families; 
that  their  upbringing,  their  connections,  and,  apart  from 
religious  and  political  differences,  their  ideas  of  conduct 
were  similar,  goes  far  to  explain  the  great  and  remarkable 
humanity  with  which  this  war  was  conducted,  in  an  age 
not  generally  distinguished  by  a  too  squeamish  delicacy. 
The  treatment  by  both  parties  of  the  native  Irish  affords  a 
very  sharp  contrast  to  their  dealings  with  each  other. 

The  armed  peace  which  succeeded  the  King's  flight  to 
the  Scots  and  the  surrender  of  Oxford  lasted  through  1647. 
But  the  revolution  was  entering  a  new  phase.  The  struggle 
was  no  longer  between  the  King  and  the  Parliament, 
but  between  two  sections  of  the  victorious  party, — the  New 
Model  Army  and  the  Independents  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  Presbyterians  on  the  other.  The  Presbyterians,  who 
had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  earlier  part  of  the  war,  were 
now  chafing  under  the  iron  rule  of  the  army,  and  were 
anxious  to  see  the  King  restored  on  terms.  The  tendency 
of  the  advanced  section  of  the  Independents  was  to  ex- 
tremes; the  "Levellers"  were  agitating  for  a  new  con- 
stitution with  a  "  paramount  law "  establishing  biennial 
parliaments,  elected  by  manhood  suffrage,  to  be  supreme  in 
legislation  and  administration  ;  and  there  was  much  talk 
of  the  People  (with  a  capital  letter)  in  terms  which  seem  a 
foretaste  of  the  French  Revolution.  The  great  mass  of  the 
inhabitants  having  no  taste  for  military  rule,  had  come  to 
believe  that  no  relief  from  the  strain  of  political  uncer- 
tainty and  the  burden  of  excessive  taxation  could  be 
found  except  in  the  restoration  of  the  King,  and  the  libera- 
tion of  the  Parliament  from  military  control.  No  doubt 
the  extreme  religious  severity  of  the  army,  and  the  grow- 
ing intensity  of  Puritanism,  as  exemplified  in  the  prohibi- 
tion of  lawful  games  and  amusements,  disgusted  many 
who  at  the  outset  had  ranged  themselves  on  the  popular 
side. 


CHAPTER  XII 

HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX 

r  I AHESE  factors  combined  to  produce  a  good  deal  of 
JL  discontent,  and  the  accession  of  some  Presbyterian 
support  was  sufficient  to  fan  the  smouldering  ashes  of 
Royalism  into  a  fresh  flame.  Open  revolt  broke  out  first 
in  South  Wales,  but  the  south-eastern  counties,  which  in 
the  First  Civil  War  had  been  almost  solid  for  the  Parlia- 
ment, gave  the  most  trouble.  Sussex  followed  the  lead  of 
Surrey. 

In  May  1648  a  petition  to  Parliament  from  the  latter 
county  was  prepared,  praying  for  a  treaty  with  the  King ; 
and  on  the  i8th  a  procession  of  petitioners  marched  through 
the  City  shouting,  "  For  God  and  King  Charles ! "  Arrived 
at  Westminster  they  sent  in  their  petition  to  the  Houses. 
The  Lords  gave  a  brief  acknowledgement,  but  no  answer 
came  from  the  Commons.  Exasperated  at  the  delay,  some 
of  the  petitioners  attacked  the  sentinels  and  endeavoured  to 
force  their  way  into  the  house,  with  cries  of "  An  old  King 
and  a  new  Parliament ! "  At  this  moment  they  were  taken 
in  the  rear  by  a  force  of  five  hundred  soldiers.  An  unequal 
struggle  ensued,  and  the  petitioners  fled  leaving  West- 
minster Hall  strewed  with  their  wounded.  Some  took  re- 
fuge in  boats,  whence  they  pelted  the  troops  with  any 
missiles  that  came  to  hand.  The  soldiers  at  length  fired  on 
them  and  so  put  an  end  to  the  riot.  Of  the  petitioners  about 
a  hundred  were  wounded  and  some  eight  or  ten  killed.1 

1  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  Ixii. 
196 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX         197 

These  proceedings  do  not  appear  to  have  daunted  the 
malcontents  in  Sussex.  On  9th  June  a  petition  was  sent 
up  to  Parliament  from  the  knights,  gentlemen,  clergy,  and 
commonalty  of  the  county  begging  that  the  King  might 
be  received  to  a  safe  treaty  with  the  two  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  that  the  army  might  be  paid  and  disbanded,  the 
kingdom  governed  according  to  the  known  laws  of  the 
realm,  the  estates  of  the  petitioners  freed  from  taxes,  and 
no  garrisons  maintained  in  their  county.1 

At  the  same  time  the  Royalists  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Horsham  were  very  active,  and  were  threatening  reprisals 
on  all  who  had  declined  to  join  in  the  petition.  As  a  pre- 
cautionary measure  the  Parliament  ordered  the  magazine 
at  Horsham  to  be  removed  to  safer  keeping  at  Arundel ; 
but  this  was  prevented.  On  22nd  June  the  Parliamentary 
officers,  William  Freeman,  Richard  Yates,  and  Nicholas 
Sheppard  reported  that  they  had  endeavoured  to  effect 
this  removal  on  the  Qth,  but  were  resisted  by  the  bailiffs 
and  constables  of  the  disaffected  party  there,  who  still 
kept  the  arms  and  magazine  under  a  strong  guard,  and 
threatened  with  death  and  plunder  those  who  endeavoured 
to  remove  them,  using  very  high  words  against  the  Parlia- 
ment. To  a  letter  from  Colonel  Morley  and  Colonel 
Stapley,  requiring  the  removal  of  the  magazine  to  Arun- 
del Castle,  they  had  replied  with  a  refusal.  "  The  malign- 
ant party  have  given  out  speeches  that  they  will  arm 
themselves  with  the  first  arms  and  rise  as  one  man  against 
all  such  as  have  not  joined  with  them  in  a  petition  called 
the  Sussex  petition ;  they  likewise  refuse  to  pay  taxes  or 
to  yield  any  obedience  to  the  ordinances  of  Parliament. 
Till  your  lordships  remove  the  obstruction  we  cannot 
safely  meet  for  getting  in  taxes  for  the  army,  or  to  do  the 
Parliament  any  further  service."2 

1  House  of  Lords  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Report  vii),  p.  30.   For 
the  full  text  of  the  petition  see  S.  A.  C.,  xix,  96. 

2  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  465. 


198     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

A  week  later  Sir  Thomas  Pelham  and  others  wrote  from 
Lewes  to  the  Speaker  that  the  disaffected  party  at  Hors- 
ham  and  its  adherents  were  now  employed  in  arming 
themselves  from  the  magazine;  "they  continue  together, 
and  by  beating  of  drum  invite  men  unto  them ;  what  in- 
fluence this  disaster  may  have  upon  other  parts  of  this  county 
we  know  not,  but  have  just  cause  to  suspect  the  worst."1 

Prompt  steps  were  taken  to  crush  this  rising.  On  29th 
June  the  Committee  of  both  Houses  wrote  to  the  Com- 
mittee of  Sussex  that  they  had  ordered  to  Horsham  as 
large  a  body  of  horse  as  could  be  spared  from  Kent,  and 
directing  that  such  force  as  could  be  raised  in  Sussex 
should  join  it.2  And  to  the  Committee  of  Kent:  "  Let  two 
or  three  troops  of  Colonel  Rich's  regiment,  or  the  horse 
with  Major  Gibbons,  march  towards  Horsham,  so  as  to 
surprise  the  enemy  there  risen;  to  the  officers  there  we 
have  written  to  that  effect.  The  gentlemen  of  Sussex  will 
send  someone  to  confer  with  you  about  this  affair."3  The 
trouble  was  evidently  regarded  in  London  as  rather  serious, 
for  on  1st  July  a  draft  ordinance  providing  that  Sussex 
should  raise  £4,547  gs.  5<£,  two  troops  of  horse,  and  a  com- 
pany of  dragoons  to  suppress  the  insurrection  there,  was  sent 
up  from  the  Commons  to  the  Lords,  but  negatived  by  them.4 

The  state  of  affairs  at  Horsham  is  well  illustrated  by  a 
letter  written  at  the  time  to  an  unnamed  correspondent  in 
London,  and  signed  R.  T.5 

"  SIR, 

"  I  received  yours  of  2/th  June,  and  thank  you  for 
your  intelligence.     You  tell  me  that  upon  the  request  of 

Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  719. 

a  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dxvi,  59.  3  Ibid. 

*  House  of  Lords  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Report  vii),  p.  34. 

5  It  seems  to  me  not  improbable  that  the  writer  was  Robert  Tred- 
croft,  son  of  Robert  Tredcroft  of  Horsham,  and  his  wife  Ann  Middleton 
of  Hills  Place,  born  1598.  His  son  Nathaniel  was  vicar  of  Horsham 
from  1647  to  1696. 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX         199 

Colonel  Morley,  it  was  granted  him  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  raise  our  county  of  Sussex.  Such  are  the  sudden 
commotions  of  the  times,  that  it  is  done  already;  so  that 
the  noble  Colonel  may  now  spare  his  pains  unless  he  make 
extreme  haste  into  this  divided  county.  The  country  is 
generally  risen  about  Horsham,  and  protest  they  will  fight 
for  the  King  and  the  country.  At  Pulborough  they  are  in 
the  same  condition ;  for  the  people  there  are  much  exas- 
perated to  learn  some  of  their  neighbours  are  imprisoned 
by  a  warrant  from  Colonel  Stapley  and  others  for  daring 
to  petition  the  high  and  honourable  Court  of  Parliament. 

"  With  us  at  Horsum,  we  are  now  500  men  in  arms ;  the 
reason  was  this:  Upon  Friday,  June  i6th  the  magazine 
which  was  laid  up  at  this  town  was  commanded  by  the 
Committee  to  Arundel ;  but  our  countrymen  are  generally 
so  ill  affected  that  they  rose  with  one  consent,  and  two  or 
three  hundred  appeared  in  an  instant,  leaving  their  mat- 
tocks and  ploughs  to  rescue  the  swords  and  muskets.  To 
the  market  house  they  came  immediately,  and  cause  David 
(who  thanks  God  he  is  well  minded  in  these  times)  and  the 
rest  of  the  pious  zealots  who  had  loaded  their  carts  with 
arms  to  carry  them  back  into  the  market  loft.  Since  then 
these  stout  rustics  have  endured  watching  every  night,  and 
by  turns  have  attended  the  arms,  some  nights  sixty  at  a 
time. 

"On  Tuesday  night,  at  a  full  assembly  in  the  market 
place,  it  was  voted  unreasonable  (unreasonable,  as  Master 
Chatfield  l  said  of  the  petition)  to  watch  there  any  longer, 
and  resolved,  upon  the  question,  that  the  following  being 
Wednesday,  at  the  sound  of  drums  and  ringing  of  bells, 
those  men  both  in  town  and  country,  who  were  resolved  to 
fight  for  the  King  and  the  liberties  of  the  country  against 
the  encroachment  of  one  Freeman 2  and  his  fellows  shall 
come  in  and  take  what  arms  they  pleased.  About  eleven 
of  the  clock  yesterday  there  was  a  great  appearance,  two  or 
1  See  ante,  p.  137.  2  M.P.  for  Horsham  1659. 


200     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

three  hundred  at  least,  every  one  chose  his  musket  and  other 
arms,  and  then  they  marched  out  to  train  on  the  Common. 

"  On  this  day,  June  2Qth,  there  came  as  many  more 
countrymen,  expecting  arms  likewise;  so  that  there  are 
now  five  or  six  hundred  well-armed,  and  many  of  them 
have  very  good  horses.  This  we  doubt  will  be  the  beginning 
of  sorrow  to  our  distressed  country ;  for  all  the  well  affected 
begin  to  leave  us;  and  then  what  can  we  expect  but 
mischief? 

"  As  soon  as  the  drums  beat,  Capt.  Sheppard  felt  himself 
not  well ;  his  belly  ached  as  if  he  feared  the  Egyptians 
would  make  a  drum  of  it;  and  he  thought  but  to  go  to 
Lewes  for  some  physic.  Lieutenant  Honeywood,  that 
knocking  agitator,  left  his  forge  and  went  to  London  for 
some  forces.  Mistress  Chatfield  advised  her  husband  to 
withdraw,  for  fear  they  should  do  him  more  mischief  than 
with  songs.  The  soldiers  say  that  if  they  had  known  of 
their  going  they  would  have  held  their  stirrups ;  their  words 
and  demands  are  very  high;  as  yet  they  hurt  no  man,  but 
threaten  to  disarm  three  or  four,  which  is  the  total  number 
of  us  who  are  well  affected.  .  .  . 

"  To  conclude,  our  fears  are  great ;  the  country  is  risen 
both  here  and  at  Pulborough ;  and  they  pretend  the  bottom 
of  the  business  to  be  because  their  petition  was  not  answered. 
Bold  varlets!  had  they  been  answered  as  their  neighbours 
the  Surrey  men  were,  perhaps  they  would  have  been  as 
they ;  but  the  better  we  use  them  the  worse  they  appear. 
Their  number  is  so  great,  and  likely  to  increase  so  much, 
that  unless  a  thousand  be  sent  down  presently  they  are 
like  to  be  as  high  here  as  in  Essex.  For  your  coming  down 
I  do  not  know  what  to  advise  you;  if  you  come,  your 
person  will  be  in  danger,  if  you  come  not  with  your  arms. 
Farewell, 

"  R.  T." l 

1  A  broadsheet  preserved  among  the  Thomason  tracts  in  the  British 
Museum  (669  f.  12  [60]).  "A  letter  from  Horsum  in  Sussex,  relating 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX        201 

Another  letter  from  S.  G.,  dated  Steyning,  5th  July  1648, 
was  printed  in  London.1  It  describes  the  unrest  of  the 
peasantry :  "  They  are  yet  most  countrymen,  none  of  any 
great  quality  assists  them  .  .  .  parties  are  coming  unto 
them  from  Brighthelmston,  Shoram,  Steining  and  other 
parts  .  .  .  they  intend  to  make  good  Bramber  and  Beed- 
ing  Bridge  .  .  .  this  is  a  very  malignant  county."  Truly  a 
remarkable  change  from  the  attitude  of  the  Sussex  popula- 
tion at  the  commencement  of  the  war. 

The  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  one  of  the 
peers  who  had  remained  faithful  to  the  Parliamentary 
cause  throughout,  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the 
horse  in  Sussex,3  but  he  does  not  appear  to  have  acted 
within  the  county.  The  style  of  this  nobleman's  conversa- 
tion did  not  accord  with  the  prevailing  fashion,  and  was 
frequently  burlesqued.  A  pretended  report  of  his  speech  to 
the  University  of  Oxford,  of  which  he  was  Chancellor,  at 
his  visitation  in  April  1648  runs  as  follows:  "You  know 
what  a  coyle  I  had  ere  I  could  get  hither,  Selden  did  so 
vex  us  with  his  law  and  his  reasons,  we  could  get  nothing 
passed;  my  friends  voted  bravely,  else  Selden  had  carried 
it.  'Sdeath,  that  fellow  is  but  a  burgess  for  Oxford  and  I 
am  Chancellour,  and  yet  he  would  have  the  Parliament 
hear  his  law, — and  reasons  against  their  own  Chancellour. 
— I  thank  you  for  giving  me  a  gilded  Bible, — you  could 
not  give  me  a  better  book  (dam  me,  I  think  so).  I  love  the 
Bible,  though  I  seldom  use  it."  3 

Early  in  July  Sir  Michael  Livesay,  with  a  regiment  of 

the  present  estate  of  that  county  to  his  friend  in  London."  By  R.  T. 
1648. 

1  B.M.,  Thomason  tracts,  pressmark  E.  451  (13). 

8  S.  A.  C.,  v,  88. 

3  Speech  of  Philip  Herbert,  late  Earl  of  P.  and  M.  and  M.P.  for 
Berks,  April  6,  1649,  without  Oaths,  folio.  News  from  Pembroke  and 
Montgomery,  or  Oxford  Manchestered,  as  here  it  follows,  Word  for 
Word,  and  Oath  for  Oath,  4to,  1648, — alluding  to  the  Visitation  of 
Cambridge  by  the  Earl  of  Manchester.  S.  A.  C.,  v,  88. 


202     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

horse,  arrived  at  Horsham,  and  took  the  town  with  little 
trouble.  The  insurgents  were  driven  from  the  streets  into 
the  outskirts,  and  desultory  firing  went  on  for  some  hours, 
with  the  result  that  one  soldier  and  three  citizens  were 
killed.  The  Parish  Register  records  the  burial  of  "  Edward 
Filder,  by  the  soldiers  thrusting  a  sword  through  the 
window  of  his  house  in  the  back  lane;  William  Baker,  in 
the  hop  gardens  belonging  to  Nicholas  Sturt;  and  Thomas 
Marshall,  gent.,  was  followed  into  East  Street  and  killed 
near  Thomas  Michell's  door."  According  to  a  family  tradi- 
tion, John  Michell  of  Stammerham  lost  his  life  in  this 
engagement,  and  his  son  was  wounded.1 

On  /th  July  the  Committee  sent  their  thanks  to  Sir 
Michael  Livesay  for  his  care  and  success  in  this  business.2 
In  Horsham  his  troops  caused  great  dissatisfaction  by  their 
"  disorders  and  plunderings  without  distinction  of  friend  or 
enemy,"  and  in  the  following  year,  being  again  quartered 
in  the  county,  proved  a  great  burden  "  both  by  their  free 
quarter  and  their  disorderly  carriage." 

After  the  outbreak  was  quelled,  Thomas  Middleton,  who 
in  an  earlier  year  had  been  regarded  with  suspicion,3  was 
sent  up  to  London  in  custody ;  the  other  delinquents  were 
allowed  to  compound  for  their  estates  by  paying  one-fourth 
of  their  value.  Among  them  were  William  Marlett  and 
John  Shelley  of  Sullington.  On  28th  July  the  Commons 
ordered  that  it  be  referred  to  the  Committee  of  Sussex,  out 
of  the  compositions,  fines,  and  sequestrations  of  the  estates 
of  such  delinquents  as  were  engaged  in  the  late  tumult  at 
Horsham,  not  being  formerly  sequestered,  to  give  reason- 
able satisfaction  to  such  of  the  Parliament's  friends  as  have 
been  plundered  and  damaged  by  the  enemy  or  others  in 
the  late  tumult,  as  the  said  Committee  should  think  fit, 
and  that  they  had  power  to  compound  with  such  delin- 
quents for  that  purpose.4 

1  Hunt's  Horsham,  p.  17.  2  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dxvi,  61. 

3  See  ante,  p.  80.  *  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dxvi,  76. 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX        203 

The  cases  of  Thomas  Middleton  and  his  son  John  were 
before  the  Committee  for  compounding  for  a  long  time. 
The  estate  was  sequestrated  by  the  County  Committee,  but 
Middleton  appealed  to  the  Barons  of  Exchequer,  by  whom 
he  was  acquitted  of  delinquency  on  i6th  November  1651; 
and  the  Committee  for  compounding  ordered  the  Sussex 
Committee  to  refund  to  the  father  and  the  son  the  money 
received  out  of  the  estate.1  The  matter  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  finally  disposed  of  till  1655. 

The  Committee  was  more  successful  with  the  smaller  fry. 
Several  persons  of  little  means  were  fined  in  1649  for  "tak- 
ing up  arms  in  the  late  insurrection  in  Sussex."  William 
Pearse  of  Nuthurst  was  fined  at  one-sixth,  £3  6s.  8d.2  Henry 
Wood  of  Horsham  at  one-sixth,  £3  4$-.  od?  John  Wood 
of  Nuthurst  at  one-sixth,  £i  i$s.  $d.  Wood  complained  in 
1651  that  the  estate  settled  for  his  poor  mother's  relief  and 
for  payment  of  his  debts  was  "  sequestered  or  seized  for  his 
pretended  delinquency";  and  begged  liberty  to  examine 
witnesses  in  proof  of  his  innocence.  He  had  nothing  to  live 
on  but  his  work,  being  a  day  labourer  for  6d.  or  I2d.  a  day, 
and  was  not  able  to  appeal.  He  had  sent  up  his  fine,  but  it 
was  rejected,  for  what  cause  he  knew  not.4 

Another  abortive  rising  occurred  in  East  Sussex — an 
attempt  by  Major  Anthony  Norton 5  to  seize  the  garrison 
at  Rye.  In  an  inquiry  with  reference  to  the  sequestration 
of  his  estate  in  1651,  it  was  alleged  against  him  that  in 
1648  he  was  in  arms  against  the  Parliament,  and  persuaded 
others  to  join  the  late  King's  forces;  that  he  threatened  to 
take  away  the  lives  and  goods  of  friends  of  the  Parliament, 
and  to  take  the  keys  of  Rye  magazine,  and  have  the 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  2232-4. 

*  Ibid.,  1986.  3  Ibid.,  1987.  ^  Ibid. 

s  Presumably  the  Anthony  Norton,  Gent.,  a  brewer  and  freeman  of 
Rye,  who  signed  the  "  Engagement "  of  1649-50  to  be  true  and  faithful 
to  the  Government  as  then  established,  without  a  King,  or  a  House 
of  Lords.  See  Mr.  Inderwick  on  The  Rye  Engagement,  S.  A.  C., 
xxxix,  1 6. 


204     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

ammunition  for  the  King.  That  he  raised  horses  and  arms, 
and  in  person  directed  the  fortification  of  Blackwell  Wall 
against  Major  Gibbons,  the  Parliamentary  commander,  and 
that  having  collected  sixty  men  in  arms  he  declared  he 
would  oppose  the  entry  of  the  Parliament  forces  into 
Sussex,  and  encouraged  others  to  assist  in  the  Kentish 
rebellion.1  Major  Norton  was  easily  routed  by  Major  Gib- 
bons, who  on  1 4th  August  received  the  thanks  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  both  Houses  for  his  good  services  in  securing  the 
town  of  Rye,  where  he  was  directed  to  remain  until  further 
orders.2  Anthony  Norton  does  not  seem  to  have  learnt 
wisdom.  At  any  rate  a  person  of  that  name  was  in  trouble 
at  Rye  in  August  1654,  for  using  scandalous  words.  One 
Mark  Hounsell  deposed  that  walking  in  the  highway  from 
Playden  in  the  previous  May  he  heard  Anthony  Norton 
say,  as  they  were  talking  of  the  fighting  at  sea,  that  there 
were  none  but  rogues  that  fought  against  the  King,  and 
that  Cromwell  and  all  that  followed  him  were  rogues.  The 
reason  he  did  not  disclose  these  words  to  the  Mayor  and 
Jurats  before  was  that  the  said  Anthony  Norton  owed  him 
some  money,  and  he  wished  to  get  his  money  first.3 

These  Royalist  outbreaks,  somewhat  foolhardy  as  they 
appear  now,  were  stimulated  by  the  advance  of  the  Scottish 
army  under  Hamilton  into  England,  and  occasioned  much 
nervousness  in  London.  On  igth  August  the  Committee 
wrote  to  the  Committee  at  Chichester  that  there  was  a 
design  by  some  malignants  to  seize  the  city,  which  if 
effected  would  cause  great  prejudice  to  the  kingdom,  as 
shown  in  the  case  of  Colchester.  They  were  instructed  to 
keep  a  vigilant  eye  on  all  motions  in  those  parts.4  With 
the  crushing  defeat  of  the  Scots  army  by  Cromwell  on 
1 7th  August,  and  the  capitulation  of  Colchester,  which  had 

1  Cal.  Proceedings,  Com.  for  Advance  of  Money,  pp.  1350-1. 
a  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dxvi,  81. 

3  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  223. 

4  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dxvi,  81. 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX        205 

stood  a  long  siege  under  the  Earl  of  Norwich,  to  Fairfax 
ten  days  later,  the  Second  Civil  War  practically  came  to 
an  end.  Its  result  was  to  throw  the  reins  of  power  more 
fully  into  the  hands  of  the  army  chiefs,  especially  Crom- 
well. They  had  at  their  command  a  superb  and  never- 
defeated  force  of  nearly  50,000  men,  irresistible  in  the 
strength  of  unrivalled  discipline  and  religious  fervour.  It 
was  composed  for  the  greater  part  of  a  class  superior  to 
the  rank  and  file  of  most  armies — men  who  were  anxious 
to  return  to  their  civil  occupations,  but  could  be  depended 
on  to  obey  a  summons  to  arms  if  required.  For  the  next 
ten  years,  with  the  exception  of  the  short  campaign  of 
1651,  England  knew  internal  peace,  but  it  was  peace  im- 
posed and  maintained  by  the  sword. 

It  was  indeed  high  time  that  the  land  should  have  peace. 
Not  only  were  the  national  finances  in  a  hopeless  state  of 
disorganization,  but  the  ever  pressing  need  for  more  money 
caused  the  imposition  of  fresh  and  burdensome  taxation. 
In  the  early  days  of  the  war  the  Parliament  had  to  live 
from  hand  to  mouth,  and  to  pay  its  forces  from  such  chance 
sources  as  occurred,  such  as  Royalist  fines  and  composi- 
tions. Later  the  assessment  raised  by  monthly  payments 
from  the  counties  for  the  support  of  the  New  Model  Army 
was  estimated  at  .£641,000  a  year,1  but  in  Sussex,  at  any 
rate,  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  regularly  paid.  In  an 
agricultural  county  like  Sussex,  the  continual  drain  of  able- 
bodied  men  to  the  colours  must  have  tended  to  impoverish- 
ment, only  partially  mitigated  by  the  excellent  business 
done  at  the  ordnance  factories.  The  excise — "  that  Dutch 
divill,  excise,  that  insensibly  devoures  the  poore  and  will 
impoverish  the  rich  "  — was  levied  not  only  on  food  and 
drink,  but  on  goods  of  almost  every  description,  and  pressed 

1  R.  O.  Audit  Office  Declared  Accounts. 

2  From  A  List  of  the  Names  of  the  Members  of  the  House  of 
Commons  .  .  .  together  with  such  sums,  etc.  as  they  have  given  them- 
selves for  service  done. 


206     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

on  all  classes.  And  its  collection  seems  sometimes  to  have 
been  attended  with  great  hardship.  "  When  plundering 
troops  killed  all  the  poor  countrymen's  sheep  and  swine, 
and  other  provisions,  whereby  many  honest  families  were 
ruined  and  beggared,  these  unmerciful  people  would  force 
excise  out  of  them  for  those  very  goods  which  the  others 
had  robbed  them  of;  insomuch  that  the  religious  soldiers 
said  they  would  starve  before  they  would  be  employed  in 
forcing  it,  or  take  any  of  it  for  their  pay."  ' 

The  amount  of  the  excise  on  food  was  generally  five  per 
cent.;  "all  beefs  muttons  veals  porks  lambs  and  other 
butcher's  meat,  to  be  killed  for  provision  of  victuals,  shall 
pay  one  shilling  in  every  twenty  shillings  value  of  the 
beast  when  he  is  living."  Every  butcher  had  to  render  a 
weekly  account  of  his  killings ;  in  default  of  a  true  return 
he  incurred  a  penalty  of  double  the  duty,  and  was  pro- 
hibited from  carrying  on  business  for  twelve  months.  The 
tax  amounted  to  a  halfpenny  on  each  rabbit,  and  a  penny 
a  dozen  on  pigeons.  Householders  killing  for  their  own 
consumption  were  bound  to  make  a  return  and  pay  the 
duty. 

The  agriculturists  no  doubt  did  what  they  could  to  pro- 
tect themselves.  Rents  were  very  grudgingly  paid,  even  on 
the  estates  of  the  great  landowners  who  adhered  to  the 
Parliament.  In  the  five  years  ending  in  1646,  the  Earl  of 
Northumberland  had  lost  either  by  actual  damage  or  by 
the  non-payment  of  rents  £42,^00^  The  wages  of  agri- 
cultural labourers  remained  in  the  early  years  of  the  war 
at  the  same  level  as  previously,  that  is,  at  yd.  a  day,  with 
a  tendency  to  rise  to  &/.3  These  wages  were  fixed  by  the 
justices  of  the  peace,  who  seem  to  have  acted  fairly  in  view 
of  the  circumstances.  The  year  1646  was  the  first  of  a 
series  of  six  years  in  which  the  harvest  was  uniformly  bad. 

1  Memoirs  of  Colonel  Hutchinson,  p.  271. 
*  Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Report  iii,  86. 
3  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  xlvi. 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX         207 

The  price  of  wheat,  which  in  plentiful  years  averaged  about 
30^.  a  quarter,  rose  to  an  average  of  65.?.  ^\d.  in  the  three 
years  from  1647-9;  and  oats,  rye,  and  pease,  the  staple 
food  of  the  labourer,  in  like  proportion.  Meat  rose  in  price 
about  50  per  cent.1  Through  this  period  agricultural  wages 
were  gradually  increased,  until  in  1651  they  were  fixed  at 
is.  2d.  a  day. 

Yet  in  spite  of  the  trouble  of  the  times,  the  stress  of  war, 
increased  taxation  and  diminished  rents,  it  appears  that 
some  of  the  nobility  and  country  gentry  were  still  able  to 
maintain  their  customary  state  and  lavish  expenditure. 
The  household  accounts  of  Lord  Dacre  at  Herstmonceux 
Castle  from  August  1643  to  December  1649  were  carefully 
kept  and  have  been  preserved;3  they  give  a  remarkable 
insight  into  the  economy  of  a  large  country  house  in  Sussex 
at  the  time. 

Francis  Lord  Dacre  was  born  in  1619,  and  was  therefore 
about  twenty-three  years  of  age  when  war  broke  out.  He 
was  nearly  related  to  Sir  William  Waller,  and  himself  took 
an  active  part  on  the  Parliamentary  side.  In  a  letter  to 
Lord  Grey  of  Werke,  the  deputy  Speaker  of  the  House, 
written  from  Herstmonceux  on  22nd  January  1643, 
he  says: 

"  On  Wednesday  night  I  received  your  lordship's  of  the 
ninth  of  this  month,  and  would  have  most  gladly  obeyed 
the  commands  of  the  House  of  Peers,  by  coming  presently 
away  to  wait  on  the  affairs  of  this  kingdom  on  the  22nd, 
had  not  the  ways  ever  since  been  so  extremely  clogged  by 
a  very  deep  snow,  that  men  pass  not  without  much  diffi- 
culty and  danger.  I  beseech  your  lordship  to  add  to  this 
reason  the  weakness  of  my  own  health,  not  being  able  to 
endure  the  rigour  of  the  journeying  on  horseback  in  such 

1  Rogers,  Hist,  of  Agriculture  and  Prices,  v,  205,  623;  vi,  54,  286. 

2  See  the  interesting  article  by  T.  Barrett  Lennard  in  S.  A.  C.,  xlviii, 
from  which  the  following  particulars  are  drawn. 


208     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

exceeding  cold  weather,  as  now  it  is;  and  to  represent  this 
to  their  lordships'  favourable  constructions;  not  that  J 
intend  to  make  long  use  of  any  way  to  excuse  myself  from 
that  duty,  which  I  shall  ever  owe  to  the  Commonwealth, 
but  very  shortly  shall  give  my  attendance  on  their  lord- 
ships with  all  willingness  and  readiness.  And  so  I  rest 
"  Your  lordship's 

"  Most  humble  servant 

"  FRANCIS  DACRE." 

He  strongly  opposed  the  ordinance  for  the  King's  trial, 
and  was  one  of  the  twelve  Roundhead  peers  who  attended  the 
House  of  Lords  in  January  1649 — among  the  others  being 
Manchester,  Northumberland,  Pembroke,  and  Denbigh — 
and  unanimously  rejected  it. 

Considering  the  size  of  Herstmonceux  and  the  constant 
entertainment  of  guests  there,  the  number  of  servants  is 
not  remarkably  large.  About  twenty  indoor  and  outdoor 
menservants,  including  grooms,  gardeners,  falconers,  etc., 
and  about  ten  women  seem  to  make  up  the  total.  Only 
two  gardeners  were  kept,  the  chief  receiving  £2  IDS.  a 
quarter,  the  usual  wages  of  the  upper  servants,  and  the 
under  man  only  i$s.  The  regular  servants  were  all  given 
board  and  lodging.  A  woman  who  helped  to  weed  in  the 
garden  was  paid  ^d.  a  day.  Casual  labourers  seem  to  have 
received  is.  a  day  in  1644;  four  men  were  paid  £i  45.  for 
six  days'  work  in  digging  up  young  trees  and  planting 
them  in  the  park.  Thomas  Edmonds,  the  cook,  received 
£3  a  quarter,  the  coachman  and  grooms  half  that  amount, 
the  postilian  £i. 

The  cost  of  bread  consumed  by  the  household,  which,  of 
course,  did  its  own  baking,  seems  to  have  varied  from  £,i 
to  £2  6s.  8d.  per  week.  The  amount  of  beer  consumed  was 
prodigious;  it  is  calculated  by  Mr.  Lennard  at  an  average 
consumption  of  eight  gallons  per  week  to  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  castle.  But  it  is  possible  that  a 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX        209 

good  deal  may  have  been  given  away  to  outside  labourers. 
Claret  was  purchased  at  about  2s.  a  gallon,  and  sack  "  for 
my  ladies  use  "  at  $s.  The  variety  of  fare  consumed  was 
very  great.  About  thirty  different  kinds  of  fish  appear  in 
the  accounts,  including  crabs,  4  for  I s. ;  herrings,  4  for  2d. ; 
lobsters,  5  for  2s.  Sal. ;  mackerel,  40  for  2s.  8d. ;  oysters,  2d. 
to  3^.  per  dozen;  fresh  salmon,  5-y.  each;  soles,  7  for 
2s.  4.d. ;  sprats,  300  for  is.  6d.;  mullet,  unpriced.1 

Game  and  poultry  were  also  in  great  abundance  and 
variety,  nearly  forty  different  kinds  being  enumerated. 
They  include  capons,  is.',  chickens,  $d. ;  ducks,  6d.;  geese, 
i s.  6d. ;  quails,  four  dozen  for  24$-.,  bought  from  a  French 
ship;  turkeys,  2s. ;  wheatears,  $d.  per  dozen ;  and  woodcocks, 
4d.  each. 

The  beef  and  mutton  required  for  the  castle  were  pro- 
vided from  the  home  farm,  so  that  there  is  no  record  of 
their  purchase.  Of  articles  of  grocery,  sugar  was  bought  at 
lod.  a  pound,  raisins  at  4^.,  cloves  at  Sd.  per  oz.,  and  pepper 
at  \\d. 

Among  the  numerous  visitors  to  the  castle  were  the 
Lords  Nottingham,  Westmoreland,  Montague,  and  Stam- 
ford— peers  of  the  same  political  convictions  as  Lord 
Dacre — and  Sir  William  Waller,  his  kinsman.  Lady  Anne 
Waller  seems  to  have  brought  an  army  of  followers;  in 
August  1647  sne  was  staying  at  Herstmonceux  with  two 
sons  and  three  daughters,  one  gentlewoman,  a  nurse,  and 
four  maid  and  six  men  servants.  If  the  castle  wanted  many 
appointments  now  considered  essential,  there  were,  at  any 
rate,  feather  beds  and  warming  pans;  and  a  cooper's  bill 
for  sundry  work  includes  "  putting  4  hoops  to  the  bathing 
tub." 

1  "  Arundel  mullets,  as  they  say  here, 

Are  the  best  in  England  for  good  cheer 
But  at  6d.  the  pound  'tis  pretty  dear." 

From  Thomas  Baskerville's  Journeys  in  England,  temp.  Chas.  II. 
Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  ii,  276. 

P 


210     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

War  had  not  entirely  killed  sport.  There  are  copious 
references  in  the  accounts  to  hawking,  coursing,  and  shoot- 
ing. It  is  curious  to  read  at  this  date  of  partridges  being 
turned  out :  "  Paid  Mr.  Shoarditch  for  5  partridges  to  be 
turned  abroad  2s.  6d"  But  Lord  Dacre's  own  favourite 
diversion  was  his  "yought,"  which  he  kept  at  Pevensey. 
He  was  probably  the  first  of  English  yachtsmen.  The 
accounts  show  that  the  yacht  sailed  at  times  certainly  as 
far  as  London.  John  Waters,  "  pillate,"  was  paid  £2  los. 
for  conducting  her  home  from  Gravesend. 

Lord  and  Lady  Dacre  drove  abroad  in  a  coach-and-six ; 
on  one  occasion  his  lordship  hired  a  coach  to  travel  down 
from  London,  and  paid  £4.  "js.  for  it,  with  his  "  benevolence  " 
for  the  coachman  5^.  Considering  the  difficulties  of  Sussex 
travel  this  does  not  seem  excessive,  but  it  was  in  the  month 
of  June,  when  the  roads  would  probably  be  in  good  con- 
dition. Under  the  Commonwealth  the  cost  of  coach  hire 
was  fixed  at  2Os.  a  day  for  four  horses,  and  los.  a  day  for 
two,  to  travel  upon  the  roads  to  and  from  London  thirty 
miles  a  day — "  excepting  in  Sussex  roads,  which  being 
worst  and  hardest  for  journeying,  shall  be  travelled  as  far 
only  as  is  reasonable,  or  as  shall  be  agreed  or  undertaken 
by  the  coachman  upon  hire." l  On  one  occasion  4^.  6d.  was 
paid  for  "  a  jornaye  to  Rye  after  enquirie  of  a  box  which 
my  lady  expected  out  of  France." 

It  is  indeed  a  refreshment  to  turn  from  the  horrors  of 
war,  the  sufferings  of  ejected  clergy,  and  ruined  Royalists 
and  plundered  peasants,  to  this  smiling  sketch  of  peace  and 
plenty.  It  suggests  that  in  our  preoccupation  with  the 
great  game  of  politics,  and  its  results,  we  are  apt  to  regard 
the  stirring  events  which  were  seized  upon  by  sensational 
pamphleteers,  and  were  the  daily  bread  of  excitable  poli- 
ticians, as  affecting  the  general  life  of  the  community  more 
deeply  than  they  actually  did.  And  the  rapid  rise  of  Eng- 

1  Perfect  Diurnal,  2nd  January  1655. 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX        211 

land  under  Cromwell  to  a  commanding  position  in  Europe 
and  at  sea  may  point  to  the  fact  that  the  devastation 
wrought  by  the  Civil  War  was  less  complete  than  we  are 
sometimes  inclined  to  believe.  Fascinated  by  the  lurid 
scenes  which  fill  the  foreground  of  the  picture,  we  fail  to 
observe  that  the  surrounding  landscape  is  but  slightly 
clouded. 

Yet  even  into  the  peaceful  Eden  of  Herstmonceux  the 
serpent  entered.  A  few  years  later  Major-General  Goffe 
wrote  from  Chichester  to  Secretary  Thurloe :  "  The  Lord 
Dakers  is  gone  beyond  sea  upon  some  discontent  betwixt 
him  and  his  lady." l 

With  these  particulars  of  the  economy  of  the  household 
of  a  peer  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  compare  some  items 
in  the  expenditure  of  a  well-to-do  country  parson  during 
the  Protectorate.  The  Rev.  Giles  Moore  was  admitted 
rector  of  Horsted  Keynes  in  1655.  The  parsonage  was  in 
so  ruinous  a  state  that  it  cost  him  £250  to  make  it  fit  to 
dwell  in.  His  "yearly  servant"  John  Dawes  received  a 
wage  of  .£5,  and  a  maid-servant,  Rose  Colman,  £3  per 
annum.  Jobbing  gardeners  were  paid  is.  a  day.  On  one 
of  Mr.  Moore's  visits  to  London  he  purchased  some  fruit 
trees  for  his  garden — "  an  apricock  tree  is.  8d. ;  an  orange 
tree  8d. ;  a  pair  of  royal  Windsor  paires  is.  &d. ;  two  Kentish 
pippins  2s.  qd. ;  two  Flanders  cherryes  2s.  6d. ;  twenty  six 
young  roots  of  Provence  roses  $s.  6d. ;  one  gallon  of  straw- 
berries is.  6d.;  for  8  young  apple  trees  I  payd  Js"  Mr. 
Moore  went  to  London  once  or  twice  a  year,  and  on  each 
occasion  bought  a  number  of  books.  "  I  bought  in  London 
of  Mr.  Clarke  at  Mercers  Chapel,  Grotius  de  Jure  Belli 
etc.  5-y.;  of  a  bookseller  in  Little  Bretagne,  Camden's 
Britannia,  £1  14^."  Soon  after  his  induction  he  purchased 
a  present  for  the  wife  of  his  patron.  "  I  payed  to  Alderman 
Hinde,  in  Lumbard  Street,  goldsmith,  for  a  faire  silver 

1  i3th  November  1655.   Thurloe,  State  Papers,  iv,  190. 


212     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

tankard  of  3802., which,  at  $s.  yd.  anoz.,  came  to  ^"10  15^.3^.; 
for  engraving  thereupon  Mr.  Michelborne's 1  and  his  wyfe's 
arms,  on  whom  it  was  bestowed,  and  for  a  cabinet  given  to 
Mistress  Anne,  at  the  same  time  that  the  other  was  given 
her  mother,  £1  $s."  He  did  not  neglect  his  creature  com- 
forts during  these  visits  to  town.  "  5th  Aug.  I  went  to 
London,  coming  againe  on  the  8th.  I  spent  on  a  fishe 
dinner  at  the  Crowne  and  Harpe,  Old  Fleet  St.,  8^.  6d. 
Spent  other  wise  2s.  4^.;  oastler  2s.  6d.\  tapster  is.  ^d.  I 
bought  of  my  countryman  Mr.  Cooper  a  new  hat  costing 
together  with  the  band  £1  $s." 

Bed-furniture  and  other  household  stuff  was  purchased 
of  "William  Clowson,  upholsterer  itenerant,  living  over 
against  the  Crosse  at  Chichester,  but  who  comes  about  the 
country  with  his  packs  on  horseback."  Mrs.  Moore  seems 
to  have  had  little  control  over  the  family  expenditure.  "  I 
gave  my  wyfe  1 $s.  to  lay  out  at  St.  James'  faire  at  Lind- 
field,  all  which  shee  spent  except  2s.  6d.,  which  shee  never 
returned  mee."  But  she  seems  to  have  done  a  little  farming 
on  her  own  account.  "  I  bought  of  my  wyfe  a  fat  hog  to 
spend  in  my  family,  for  the  which  I  payed  the  summe  of 
30^. ;  the  2  flitches  of  bacon,  when  dryed,  weighed  64  Ib. 
I  gave  her  to  buy  a  qr.  of  lambe  $s.  6d" 

Considering  the  value  of  money  at  the  time  groceries 
and  similar  articles  were  exceedingly  expensive.  "  I  bought 
a  Cheshire  cheese  of  13  Ib.  weight  5^.  8<af.;  for  2  dozen  of 
lemons  and  basket  I  gave  2s.  2d. ;  8  Ib.  of  raisins  at  yd.  the 
Ib.,  4^.  3^.;  10  Ib.  of  powder  sugar  at  yd.  the  Ib.,  6s.  3^.; 
i  Ib.  of  white  powder  sugar  lod. ;  i  Ib.  of  pepper  -$d. ;  I  Ib. 
of  cherries  iod.\  2  oz.  of  tobacco  is."  With  tobacco  at  8s. 

1  William  Michelborne,  of  Horsted  Keynes  and  Stanmer,  eldest 
surviving  son  and  heir  of  Sir  Richard  Michelborne,  was  born  about 
1601,  and  married  in  1631  Anne,  daughter  of  Laurence  Ashburnham 
of  Broomham,  Esq.,  by  his  first  wife,  Sybil,  daughter  of  George  Goring 
of  Danny,  Esq.  Their  daughter  Anne  was  born  in  1633.  See  Notes 
on  the  Family  of  Michelborne,  by  Col.  F.  W.  T.  Attree,  F.S.A.,  late 
R.E.,  in  S.  A.  C.,  1. 


HORSHAM  AND  HERSTMONCEUX        213 

a  pound  the  labourer  in  receipt  of  is.  a  day  can  scarcely 
have  enjoyed  a  pipe. 

Clothing  was  also  dear.  "  I  bought  at  Sir  G.  Lr.  Hunt's 
Sons  partner,  at  the  signe  of  the  Ship  in  St.  Paul's  Church 
Yd.,  2  yds.  of  blackish  cloth,  costing  mee  £1  2s. ;  £  a  yard 
of  velvett,  2.5.  6d. ;  a  satin  cap  plaited  5*. ;  13  yds.  of  grass 
greene  serge  at  $s.  $d.  the  yd.,  and  for  greene  silke  fringe 
at  i s.  %d.  the  oz. — in  all  £2  i6s."  "  For  3  yards  and  £  of 
scarlet  serge,  of  which  I  made  the  library  cupboard  carpet, 
besydes  my  wastcoate  made  thereof,  1 5 s."  "  For  a  payr  of 
gray  woollen  stockings  I  payd  3^. ;  for  a  payr  of  worsted, 
which  I  bought  in  London  6s.  qd.  Lent  to  my  brother 
Luxford  at  the  Widdow  Newports,  never  more  to  be 
scene!  is."1 

1  The  Journal  of  the  Rev.  Giles  Moore;  S.  A.  C.,  i,  65-127. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   REVOLUTION 

THE  events  of  1648  strengthened  the  extreme  party 
in  the  army  which  held  that  the  King  ought  not  to  be 
restored  on  any  terms  whatever,  but  brought  to  trial  and 
deposed  as  a  public  enemy.  In  October  1648  Ireton  drew 
up  The  Remonstrance  of  the  Army,  in  which  he  developed 
two  theses,  the  danger  of  continuing  to  treat  any  longer 
with  the  King,  and  the  justice  and  expediency  of  bringing 
him  to  trial.  In  addition,  the  "  Sovereignty  of  the  People," 
the  moderate  punishment  of  delinquents,  and  the  advis- 
ability of  paying  the  soldiers'  arrears  of  pay  were  discussed. 
On  1 8th  November  the  Council  of  Officers  adopted  the 
Remonstrance. 

An  interesting  petition  to  Fairfax,  the  Lord-General, 
was  sent  at  this  time  by  Mr.  Samuel  Jeake  and  others  of 
Rye: 

"  We  earnestly  crave  that  amongst  the  midst  and  multi- 
plicity of  your  weighty  agitations,  these  our  few  petitionary 
proposals  may  have  admission  into  your  serious  thoughts, 
which  out  of  our  faithful  affection  to  your  honour  and 
tender  care  of  the  weale  of  the  Republic  we  as  humbly  as 
earnestly  remonstrating  both  declare  and  desire; 

"  First,  that  as  we  do  fully  adhere  to  your  late  Remon- 
strance and  are  resolved  to  venture  lives  and  fortunes  in 
defence  of  the  Army  in  the  just  prosecution  of  it;  so  do 
we  desire  that  no  delays  (as  conceiving  them  altogether 
unsafe)  may  be  admitted  thereon. 

214 


THE  REVOLUTION  215 

"  2ly.  Considering  that  want  of  care  and  vigilancy  (as 
well  as  fidelity)  in  Committees  and  others  be-trusted  with 
public  affairs  hath  been  the  seminary  of  many  evils  in  this 
kingdom,  we  entreat  that  care  may  be  taken  to  refine 
them,  and  that  such  as  shall  in  any  ways  be  obstructers 
of  justice  either  by  opposing  it,  or  not  improving  their 
intrusted  power  to  that  purpose  may  be  excluded,  and 
also  that  the  like  sedulity  may  be  used  in  removing  the 
Committee  of  Accompts  and  appointing  others  in  their 
places,  they  being  such  whose  endeavours  are  more  to 
ensnare  than  to  advance  the  public  good. 

"  3ly.  The  kingdoms  groaning  under  the  burden  of  free- 
quarter  and  unreasonable  taxes,  occasioned  by  the  un- 
faithful dealing  of  those  entrusted  with  the  public  treasure, 
requires  (as  we  humbly  conceive)  some  exquisite  search, 
and  those  being  found  that  have  anyway  abused  the  State 
by  such  fraudulent  practices,  as  to  design  the  public  treasure 
to  their  own  private  advantage  deserve  to  be  severely  dealt 
withal. 

"  4.1y.  Minding  the  nakedness  of  these  marine  parts  and 
the  great  dangers  we  lie  exposed  to,  if  any  new  commo- 
tions (which  God  forbid)  should  break  forth,  we  earnestly 
sue  that  some  careful  provision  may  be  made  for  the  sea- 
coast,  and  especially  near  this  place,  the  better  to  strengthen 
the  hands  of  the  kingdom's  friends,  and  to  prevent  (at 
present)  unthought-of  mischiefs. 

"  5ly.  Being  grieved  to  hear  the  slanderous  aspersions 
the  Army  is  and  hath  been  loaded  with,  notwithstanding 
its  desert  to  the  contrary :  we  heartily  desire  that  all  such 
as  shall  be  known  to  asperse  them  or  to  act  or  speak 
against  their  proceedings  in  reference  to  the  execution  of 
justice  and  righteousness  may  be  brought  to  condign  pun- 
ishment. 

"  61y.  The  principal  actors  in  and  abettors  of  our  miser- 
able differences  by  reason  of  connivance  in  some,  alliance 
in  others,  with  other  such  wiseblinding  bribes,  have  re- 


216     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

gained  strength  to  rally  again  and  again,  when  we  had 
well  hoped  they  were  irrecoverable:  wherefore  we  humbly 
intreat  your  Honour  that  some  Commissioners  may  be 
appointed  to  find  out  the  actors  and  fomentors  of  the  late 
war  and  bringing  in  of  the  Scots,  and  being  found  to 
secure  them  or  otherwise,  without  superficial  dealing  in 
matters  of  this  concernment,  yet  a  special  care  be  had  of 
the  non-oppressing  their  families. 

"  /ly.  Because  of  the  distance  of  this  and  many  other 
garrisons  from  the  head-quarters,  and  the  necessity  of 
intelligence  from  thence  to  animate  the  soldiery  and  well- 
affected  residing  therein,  to  join  with  and  in  defence  of 
the  just  proceedings  of  the  Army;  we  therefore  humbly 
beseech  that  there  may  be  an  impartial  communication  of 
the  actions  of  the  Army  to  the  respective  garrisons  that 
shall  remonstrate  with  them  by  such  actors  as  each  garri- 
son shall  to  that  purpose  appoint,  and  that  all  such  of  the 
country  as  either  have  or  shall  show  themselves  worthy 
to  be  confided  in  may  be  put  in  a  posture  of  defence." l 

As  an  attempt  to  express  an  opinion  on  the  burning 
question  of  the  day,  and  at  the  same  time  to  call  attention 
to  local  grievances,  this  petition  is  ingenious.  And  that 
such  a  Puritan  town  as  Rye  should  hail  the  army  as 
saviour  is  a  sign  of  the  times. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  justice  or  policy  of 
the  trial  and  execution  of  the  King.  We  are  concerned 
mainly  with  the  prominent  part  which  was  played  in  them 
by  Sussex  men.  And  the  different  courses  taken  by  Sussex 
members  of  Parliament  in  this  crisis  are  examples  of  the 
varying  shades  of  Parliamentary  opinion. 

The  army  chiefs  who  directed  the  transaction  having 
once  made  up  their  minds  that  the  King's  removal  was 

1  S.  A.  C.,  ix,  54.  Dr.  Smart  there  expresses  the  opinion  that  the 
address,  which  is  undated,  was  written  in  June  1647.  But  it  seems 
obviously  posterior  to  the  Scottish  invasion  and  the  Remonstrance  of 
1648. 


THE  REVOLUTION  217 

necessary  to  the  safety  of  the  State,  or  to  their  control  of 
it,  at  least  shrank  from  none  of  the  consequences  of  their 
determination.  They  scorned  to  take  advantage  of  such 
easier  methods  as  assassination,  and  strove  to  clothe  their 
acts  in  some  semblance  of  a  legal  process,  even  though 
they  could  only  do  so  by  constituting  a  revolutionary 
tribunal.  By  this  decisive  act,  deliberately  planned  and 
publicly  done,  they  set  the  seal  to  their  own  proceedings ; 
they  converted  what  was  before  a  successful  insurrection 
into  a  definite  revolution. 

An  apologist  for  the  regicides  might  urge  the  personal 
ground  that  if  the  King  had  got  the  upper  hand  he  would 
have  given  the  Roundhead  leaders  a  short  shrift.  The  gist 
of  the  whole  matter  is  to  be  found  in  Manchester's  plea 
for  peace  four  years  before.  "If  we  beat  the  King  ninety 
and  nine  times,  yet  he  is  King  still,  and  so  will  his  pos- 
terity be  after  him,  but  if  the  King  beat  us  once  we  shall 
all  be  hanged,  and  our  posterity  be  made  slaves";  to 
which  Cromwell  replied :  "  My  lord,  if  this  be  so,  why 
did  we  take  up  arms  at  first?  this  is  against  fighting  ever 
hereafter,  if  so,  let  us  make  peace,  be  it  never  so  base";1 
and  in  Cromwell's  oft-quoted  saying  "  that  if  he  met  the 
King  in  battle,  he  would  fire  his  pistol  at  him  as  at 
another." 

If  there  was  one  person  whose  reputation  came  out  of 
the  affair  not  only  with  credit  but  with  glory,  it  was  the 
King.  He  who  through  long  years  of  intrigue  had  played 
the  anti-national  part,  and  had  disgusted  the  better  sort 
among  his  followers  with  his  eagerness  to  invoke  foreign 
aid  against  his  own  subjects,  became  at  one  stroke  a 
national  hero.  Few  men  by  the  manner  of  their  death 
have  seemed  to  give  a  greater  impetus  to  the  cause  for 
which  they  died.  Yet  that  cause  in  its  essentials  was 
destroyed  beyond  resuscitation.  Carlyle's  exultant  paean 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  diii,  56,  ix 


218     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

over  the  blow  struck  by  the  English  regicides  at  "  Flun- 
keyism  Cant  and  Cloth-worship  " l  seems  strangely  beside 
the  mark.  Flunkeyism  and  cloth-worship  have  flourished 
since  with  unexampled  vigour.  It  was  on  the  substance, 
not  on  the  externals,  that  the  blow  fell.  The  Stuarts 
indeed  came  back,  but  on  a  very  different  footing  from 
Charles's  idea  of  sovereignty,  and  soon  to  be  curtly  dis- 
missed almost  without  a  struggle.  The  Church  came  back, 
but  not  the  Church  of  Laud.  If  we  regard  the  execution 
as  at  once  an  evil  and  a  foolish  deed,  we  yet  must  own 
that  it  heralded  the  birth  of  a  new  England,  free  at  home, 
and  great  beyond  the  seas.  And  that  these  men  should 
dare  to  treat  a  king  as  "  a  public  officer  who  had  criminally 
betrayed  his  trust,"  put  a  different  complexion  on  kingship 
in  the  minds  of  countless  thousands. 

The  Parliament  which  was  to  set  up  a  Court  to  try  the 
King  was  by  no  means  the  same  Parliament  which  for  six 
years  had  alternately  waged  war  against  and  negotiated 
with  him.  In  December  the  army,  fresh  from  its  victory 
over  the  Scots  at  Preston,  had  entered  London  and  quietly 
filled  the  approaches  to  Westminster.  On  the  6th  and  7th 
Westminster  Hall  was  occupied  by  troops,  and  Colonel 
Pride,  acting  under  the  orders  of  Lord  Grey  of  Groby,  him- 
self a  member,  "  purged  "  the  house  of  one  hundred  and 
forty-three  members,  whom  he  placed  under  arrest.  The 
remaining  members,  who  continued  to  sit,  became  by  this 
act  the  mere  creatures  of  military  violence.  The  army  was 
their  master,  and  through  them  the  master  of  the  State.2 
On  6th  January,  after  much  discussion  and  some  altera- 
tions, an  Act  was  finally  passed  constituting  a  Court  to 
consist  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  Commissioners,  who 
were  to  be  both  judges  and  jury,  to  try  Charles  Stuart  for 
having  "  had  a  wicked  design  totally  to  subvert  the  ancient 
and  fundamental  laws  and  liberties  of  the  nation,  and  in 

1  Cromwell's  Letters,  Ixxxvi. 

2  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  Ixviii. 


THE  REVOLUTION  219 

their  place,  to  introduce  an  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  gov- 
ernment," and  on  other  counts. 

Among  the  Commissioners  were  the  following  Sussex 
men,  Colonel  Goffe,  one  of  the  military  members  of  the 
Commission,  and  nine  Members  of  Parliament:  Herbert 
Morley,  John  Fagge,  Roger  Gratwick,  Anthony  Stapley, 
Peregrine  Pelham,  James  Temple,  William  Cawley,  Sir 
Gregory  Norton,  and  John  Downes.  Colonel  Morley  at- 
tended the  trial  on  three  days,  including  the  opening,  but 
declined  to  sign  the  death-warrant;  Colonel  Fagge,  who 
had  married  Morley's  sister  Mary,  also  sat,  but  rather  as 
assisting  in  the  preliminaries  than  as  a  judge,  and  he  also 
did  not  sign  the  death-warrant.  Roger  Gratwick  did  not 
sit. 

The  actual  trial  began  on  2Oth  January;  when  the  roll 
was  called  sixty-eight  of  the  judges  answered  to  their 
names.  On  the  27th  Charles  was  brought  up  to  hear  his 
sentence,  sixty -seven  Commissioners  being  present.  A 
death-warrant  had  been  drawn  up  some  days  earlier,  but 
the  signatures  of  less  than  half  the  sitting  Commissioners 
had  been  obtained  to  it  and  some  delay  had  been  occa- 
sioned. On  Bradshaw's  stating  that  a  sentence  had  been 
agreed  upon,  but  that  before  it  was  read  the  Court  was 
willing  to  hear  what  Charles  wished  to  say,  provided  he 
did  not  question  its  jurisdiction,  the  King  replied  that  he 
had  acted  on  behalf  of  the  liberties  of  his  subjects  and  not 
in  his  own  interests,  and  ended  by  asking  to  be  heard  before 
the  Lords  and  Commons  in  the  Painted  Chamber:  he  ap- 
pealed in  fact  from  the  specially  constituted  Court  to  a 
political  assembly.1 

It  was  stated  afterwards  that  John  Downes,  member  for 
Arundel,  excited  Cromwell's  anger  by  an  intention  to  rise 
and  to  plead  publicly  that  the  King's  request  should  be 
granted.2  It  was  a  critical  moment,  as  there  is  little  doubt 

1  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  Ixx.  a  State  Trials,  vol.  i,  210-3. 


220     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

that  a  number  of  even  the  sitting  Commissioners  were 
anxious  to  clutch  at  any  straw  which  would  save  them 
from  passing  condemnation.  But  the  Court  adjourned  for 
half  an  hour  to  consider  the  King's  request,  and  Cromwell's 
determination  prevailed.  Downes  alleged  at  his  trial  in 
I66O1  that  he  had  been  frightened  into  assenting  to  the 
judgement;  and  his  case  was  no  doubt  the  case  of  several 
others.  The  Court  returned,  and  the  formal  sentence  was 
read. 

To  obtain  sufficient  signatures  to  the  death-warrant  to 
give  an  appearance  of  unanimity  among  the  acting  Com- 
missioners, the  utmost  pressure,  including  even,  it  is  said, 
physical  violence,  was  used.  In  one  way  or  another  fifty- 
nine  signatures  were  procured.  Among  these  figure  the 
names  of  seven  Sussex  Commissioners: 

WlLLI.  GOFFE. 

PER.  PELHAM. 
JAMES  TEMPLE. 
WILLI.  CAWLEY. 
ANTH.  STAPLEY. 
GREG.  NORTON. 
Jo.  DOWNES. 

On  Tuesday  3oth  January  the  King  was  executed  at 
Whitehall.  He  was  accompanied  to  the  scaffold  by  Bishop 
Juxon,  a  native  of  Sussex,  who  had  been  allowed  to  visit 
and  to  pray  with  him  while  he  was  lying  under  sentence 
of  death.  The  press  of  soldiers,  horse  and  foot,  drawn  up 
around  the  scaffold,  made  it  impossible  for  his  voice  to 
reach  the  crowd  of  citizens  beyond,  and  he  therefore  de- 
livered his  last  speech  to  Juxon  and  Colonel  Tomlinson,  a 
Parliamentary  officer  of  humanity  and  discretion.  He  ex- 
pressed clearly  and  without  reservation  the  absolutist  theory 
for  which  he  had  fought  and  was  dying.  "  For  the  people," 

1  State  Trials,  vol.  i,  212. 


BISHOP  JUXON". 


THE  REVOLUTION  221 

he  said,  "  truly  I  desire  their  liberty  and  freedom  as  much 
as  anybody  whatsoever;  but  I  must  tell  you  that  their 
liberty  and  freedom  consists  in  having  government,  those 
laws  by  which  their  lives  and  their  goods  may  be  most 
their  own.  It  is  not  their  having  a  share  in  the  govern- 
ment; that  is  nothing  appertaining  unto  them.  A  subject 
and  a  sovereign  are  clean  different  things;  and  therefore, 
until  you  do  that — I  mean  that  you  put  the  people  in  that 
liberty — they  will  never  enjoy  themselves." 

Nothing  could  be  more  explicit  or  illuminating  than 
this  last  dying  declaration ;  it  is  worth  volumes  of  dis- 
quisitions on  the  causes  of  the  war. 

Charles,  having  stated  at  Juxon's  instance  that  he  died 
"  a  Christian  according  to  the  Church  of  England,"  then 
divested  himself  of  his  cloak,  and  handing  his  George  to 
the  bishop,  uttered  the  single  "  Remember."  Of  its  import 
many  theories  have  been  held :  it  probably  referred  to  the 
deliverance  of  certain  messages  to  his  family  with  which 
he  had  already  charged  him.  The  King  then  bowed  his 
head  to  the  block. 

Juxon  was  permitted  to  bury  his  master's  body  in  St. 
George's  Chapel  at  Windsor,  and  the  funeral  took  place 
on  8th  February.  He  had  prepared  himself  to  read  the 
burial  service  from  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  but  the 
governor  of  the  Castle,  with  wanton  tyranny,  forbade  the 
use  of  any  form  but  that  of  the  Directory,  a  service  book 
after  the  most  approved  pattern  of  Puritanism,  prepared 
by  the  Westminster  Assembly  of  divines. 

As  has  already  been  noted,  Dr.  Juxon  was  a  native  of 
Sussex.  He  was  born  at  Chichester  in  the  year  1582.' 
His  father,  Richard,  son  of  John  Juxon,  a  citizen  of  Lon- 
don, was  Receiver-General  for  the  Bishop  of  Chichester's 
estates.  Richard  Juxon's  brother  Thomas  is  said  to  have 
"  suffered  for  his  religion  at  Chichester."  In  Foxe's  Book 

1  "  1582.  Oct.  24,  William,  son  of  Richard  Juxon,  baptized"  (P.  R. 
St.  Peter  the  Great,  Chichester). 


222     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Martyrs,  where  the  name  is  given  as  Iveson,  it  is  stated 
that  he  was  apprehended  and  examined  by  Bishop  Bonner 
at  the  same  time  as  Derrick  Carver,  and  burnt  at  Chichester 
in  I555-1  Educated  at  Merchant  Taylors'  School  and 
St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  William  Juxon  became  a  student 
of  Gray's  Inn,  but  shortly  exchanged  law  for  divinity,  and 
took  orders.  He  was  appointed  vicar  of  St.  Giles,  in  Ox- 
ford, and  afterwards  rector  of  Somerton.  On  Laud's  eleva- 
tion to  the  episcopate  in  1621,  Juxon  was  chosen  at  Laud's 
instance  to  succeed  him  as  President  of  St.  John's  College. 
His  rise  thereafter  was  rapid.  He  became  successively 
Chaplain  to  the  King,  Prebendary  of  Chichester,  Dean  of 
Worcester,  Clerk  of  the  Closet,  and  in  1633  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don, Laud  having  been  advanced  to  Canterbury.  He  was 
not  only  an  eminent  churchman,  noted  for  his  plain  and 
practical  preaching,  his  fine  presence,  his  moderation  and 
power  of  avoiding  offence,  but  a  first-rate  man  of  business. 
In  1636  the  King  took  the  unusual  course  of  appointing 
him  Lord  High  Treasurer,  an  office  which  had  not  been 
held  by  an  ecclesiastic  since  the  reign  of  Henry  VII.  Laud 
was  greatly  elated  at  this  appointment.  "  Now,"  he  wrote, 
"  if  the  Church  will  not  hold  up  themselves  under  God  I 
can  do  no  more."2  He  did  not  reflect  that  the  umbrage 
given  to  the  leading  laymen  of  the  country  by  this  prefer- 
ment of  a  divine  might  do  the  Church  more  harm  than 
good.  Juxon  proved  an  excellent  financier.  Fuller  says: 
"  It  was  a  troublesome  place  in  those  times,  it  being  ex- 
pected that  he  should  make  much  brick,  with  very  little 
straw  allowed  unto  him.  Large  then  the  expenses,  low  the 
revenues  of  the  Exchequer.  Yet  those  coffers  which  he 
found  empty  he  left  filling;  and  had  left  full,  had  peace 
been  preserved  in  the  land,  and  he  continued  in  his  place. 
Such  was  the  mildness  of  his  temper  that  petitioners  for 
money  (when  it  was  not  to  be  had)  departed  well-pleased 

1  See  Lower's  Worthies,  p.  80. 

2  Laud,  Diary,  6th  March  1635. 


THE  REVOLUTION  223 

with  his  denials,  they  were  so  civilly  languaged.  It  must 
justly  seem  a  wonder  that  whereas  few  spake  well  of 
bishops  at  that  time  (and  lord-treasurers  at  all  times  are 
liable  to  the  complaints  of  a  discontented  people),  though 
both  offices  met  in  this  man,  yet  with  Demetrius, '  he  was 
well  reported  of  all  men,  and  of  the  truth  itself.'  " l  Juxon 
was  so  highly  respected  by  his  religious  opponents  that  he 
was  not  deprived  of  his  temporalities  until  1649,  having 
lived  tranquilly  at  Fulham  throughout  the  war.  He  then 
retired  to  his  manor  of  Little  Compton  in  Gloucester- 
shire, where  he  is  said  to  have  kept  a  pack  of  hounds. 
The  fashion  of  clerical  amusements  changes  as  do  other 
fashions.  Even  a  retired  bishop  may  not  be  a  master  of 
hounds  to-day,  though  he  may  with  perfect  decorum  play 
bowls,  a  game  forbidden  even  to  the  laity  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth.2  Perhaps  he  also  passed  some  time  at  Albourne 
Place,  in  Sussex,  which  belonged  to  his  family.  There  is  a 
tradition  that  he  lay  concealed  on  the  roof  on  one  occasion 
when  the  house  was  searched  by  a  party  of  Parliamentary 
soldiers. 

Against  his  brother,  John  Juxon  of  Albourne,  an  infor- 
mation was  laid  in  1647  by  one  William  Bedwell,  that  he 
had  not  paid  his  tax  of  one-twentieth  to  the  Committee  for 
Advance  of  Money,  or  had  been  assessed  at  too  low  a 
figure.  "  I  know  that  my  adversary  Juxon  is  a  neuter  at 
best;  he  has  had  £430  a  year  of  my  estate  since  1640,  and 
now  has  the  whole  .£620.  He  has  ;£ioo  a  year  beside  the 
estate  of  his  late  brother  Thomas,  leased  lands  worth 
£250,  and  has  a  great  manor  in  Sussex  worth  £700  to 
£800;  also  an  estate  at  Fulham,  Middlesex,  and  most  of 
the  bishop's  plate  and  goods,  for  all  things  are  in  common 

1  Worthies,  iii,  250. 

2  "  In  1567  a  Lewes  draper  and  five  Brighton  men  were  summoned 
for  playing  this  popular  game,  while  the  constable  of  Brighton  was 
called  to  account  for  not  making  search  for  bowling  alleys  and  similar 
places  of  unlawful  games"  (Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  197). 


224     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

between  them."  John  Juxon,  however,  satisfied  the  Com- 
mittee with  regard  to  his  assessment  and  his  payment  of  it.1 

At  the  Restoration  Juxon  was  made  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury.  He  died  in  1663,  aged  eighty-one,  and  was 
buried  in  the  chapel  of  St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  by  the 
side  of  his  friend  and  predecessor,  Laud. 

Colonel  John  Downes,  the  regicide  member  for  Arundel, 
acquired  considerable  notoriety  at  the  time,  not  only  by 
his  action  at  the  King's  trial,  but  also  for  a  dispute  with 
John  Fry,  member  for  Shaftesbury,  one  of  the  King's 
judges  who  did  not  sign  the  death-warrant.  There  had 
been  an  altercation  in  "  the  Committee  Chamber  above  the 
Parliament  house,"  in  the  course  of  which  Downes  accused 
Fry  of  blasphemy  and  error.  There  was  some  colour  for 
the  accusation ;  it  is  stated  that  Fry  was  by  turns  "  presby- 
terian,  independent,  Arian;  courted  and  despised  by  all 
parties ;  his  works  were  doomed  by  the  Parliament  to  be 
burnt  by  the  common  executioner,  as  erroneous,  profane, 
and  highly  scandalous."2  Fry  wrote  a  pamphlet  entitled: 
"  The  Accuser  sham'd  or  a  pair  of  Bellows  to  Blow  off  that 
Dust  Cast  upon  John  Fry  a  Member  of  Parliament  by 
Col.  John  Downes  likewise  a  Member  of  Parliament."3 
In  this  he  spoke  of  "  those  which  have  raised  handsome 
estates  out  of  nothing,  and  vast  estates  out  of  mean  estates, 
since  our  general  calamity  upon  the  ruin  of  many,  as  well 
friend  as  foe."  Downes  appears  to  have  been  particularly 
open  to  this  charge.  Not  only  had  he  purchased  the 
Bishop's  palace  at  Chichester,  but  he  had  been  especially 
busy  in  getting  hold  of  sequestered  estates  of  Royalists  in 
Sussex.4 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Advance  of  Money,  p.  838. 

2  Noble's  Regicides,  i,  247. 

3  B.M.,  Thomason  tracts,  pressmark  E.  624  (2). 

4  For  the  proceedings  which  were  taken  in  consequence  of  the 
alleged  bribery  and  other  illegal  practices  at  Downes'  election  for 
Arundel  in  1640,  see  Horsfield,  History  of  Sussex,  vol.  ii,  Appendix, 
p.  29. 


THE  REVOLUTION  225 

The  King's  death  brought  about  a  change  in  the  con- 
stitutional position.  Hitherto  the  ancient  constitution  had 
remained  intact,  although  its  normal  operations  had  been 
suspended.  The  Commons  now  proceeded  to  consummate 
a  revolution.  They  began  by  excluding  all  members  who 
had  voted  that  the  King's  latest  proposals  had  offered  a 
ground  of  settlement.  They  next  abolished  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  finally  the  kingly  office,  as  unnecessary,  burden- 
some and  dangerous  to  the  liberty,  safety,  and  public 
interest  of  the  people.  As  an  executive  power  they  created 
a  Council  of  State  to  be  chosen  by  themselves,  and  to  con- 
sist of  forty-one  members,  to  hold  office  for  a  year.  Of 
the  Sussex  representatives,  Morley,  Stapley,  Cawley,  and 
Downes  were  members  of  this  Council  at  different  times. 

The  Puritan  revolution  was  an  attempt  to  reconcile  two 
opposing  principles ;  the  first,  that  government  should  be 
by  and  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the  people ;  the 
second,  that  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  godly  men  to 
govern  the  ungodly.  The  godly  men  having  organized  an 
irresistible  army  and  seized  the  reins  of  power,  and  being 
thoroughly  convinced  of  their  godliness,  paid  a  lip  service 
to  the  principles  of  popular  government,  and  proceeded 
with  all  arbitrariness  upon  their  godly  way.  From  control 
by  an  Army  Council  the  Government  gradually  passed 
into  a  despotism  of  one  man.  The  rule  of  a  benevolent 
despot  has  much  to  recommend  it:  unhappily  the  despot- 
ism is  apt  to  swallow  the  benevolence.  Cromwell,  a  man 
by  nature  of  wide  tolerance — he  has  even  been  blamed  for 
his  incorrigible  clemency — was  driven  by  the  trend  of 
affairs  to  the  most  despotic  proceedings.  Strong  man  as  he 
was,  political  necessity  was  too  strong  for  him.  "  No  man 
goes  so  high,"  he  once  said,  "  as  he  who  knows  not  whither 
he  is  going."  It  may  be  that  with  all  his  grip  on  business, 
civil  and  military,  he  was  not  endowed  with  any  great 
power  of  foresight;  his  course  at  times  seems  almost  a 
career  of  drift,  broken  by  ineffectual  struggles  against  the 

Q 


226     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

overpowering  stream.  By  the  strange  irony  of  events  the 
absolutism  to  which  Charles  had  vainly  aspired  was  forced 
on  Cromwell ;  "  if  nothing,"  he  came  to  say,  "  should  be 
done  but  what  is  according  to  law,  the  throat  of  the  nation 
may  be  cut  while  we  send  for  some  to  make  a  law."  Its 
failure  in  such  competent  hands  taught  England  that 
absolutism  is  near  akin  to  anarchy,  and  insured  her  political 
development  on  other  lines. 

After  the  execution  of  the  King,  the  need  of  preventing 
anarchy,  and,  as  it  was  held,  of  preserving  all  that  had 
been  fought  for,  forbade  the  establishment  of  a  democratic 
government.  The  survivors  of  the  Long  Parliament,  now 
mere  creatures  of  the  army,  took  such  measures  as  were 
possible  to  secure  the  status  quo.  In  January  1650  an  Act 
was  passed  that  every  person  holding  any  office  whatever 
should  sign  a  solemn  Engagement  to  be  true  and  faithful 
to  the  government  as  then  established,  without  a  King  or 
a  House  of  Lords.  Almost  all  the  originals  of  these  Engage- 
ments have  disappeared,  but  it  happens  that  the  Engage- 
ment signed  by  168  persons,  including  the  Mayor  and  the 
Town  Clerk,  of  the  town  of  Rye  has  been  preserved,  and  is 
of  great  local  interest.1  In  January  1654,  Cromwell  issued 
an  ordinance  which,  after  reciting  that  promissory  oaths 
and  engagements  were  burthens  and  snares  to  tender  con- 
sciences, repealed  the  Act  for  subscribing  the  Engagement, 
and  declared  that  no  such  Engagement  should  be  required 
of  any  person,  nor  should  any  one  who  had  not  already 
taken  such  Engagement  be  in  any  way  prejudiced  by  his 
default. 

Among  those  who  refused  to  take  the  Engagement  in 
1650  was  Lord  Dacre.  He  was  accordingly  relieved  of  his 
office  of  Vice- Admiral  for  the  county  of  Sussex,  and  Colonel 
Anthony  Stapley  was  appointed  in  his  place  on  i/th  June. 
There  was  some  delay  over  the  carrying  out  of  this  busi- 

1  See  The  Rye  Engagement  by  F.  A.  Inderwick,  Q.C.,  in  S.  A.  C., 
xxxix. 


THE  REVOLUTION  227 

ness,  for  in  the  February  Mr.  Wynn,  Registrar  of  the  Ad- 
miralty was  ordered  to  give  in  writing  his  reasons  for  not 
having  prepared  patents  for  making  Colonel  Stapley  Vice- 
Admiral  for  Sussex.1 

Stapley  was  reaping  the  reward  of  his  consistent  support 
of  Cromwell.  He  was  now  a  member  of  the  Council  of 
State,  with  lodgings  in  Whitehall  supplied  with  "  hangings 
and  other  accommodation  "  at  the  public  expense.2  In  1653 
he  was  appointed  a  Commissioner  of  Somers  Islands — the 
Bermudas — with  a  salary  of  £1,000  a  year;3  an  office 
which  does  not  appear  to  have  interfered  with  his  other 
activities. 

Colonel  Morley  was  a  much  less  thick-and-thin  supporter 
of  Cromwell's  policy.  He  had  resisted  all  pressure  to  sign 
the  King's  death-warrant.  The  leading  man  in  Sussex  on 
the  Parliamentary  side  throughout  the  war,  he  still  enjoyed 
the  greatest  influence  and  popularity  in  the  county;  but  in 
Parliament  he  was  becoming  "  almost  a  malcontent."  With 
Mr.  Bond  he  acted  as  teller  for  the  opposition  to  the  bill 
brought  in  during  November  1651,  to  provide  that  the 
House  should  be  dissolved  on  3rd  November  1654,  and 
counted  forty-seven  votes.  Cromwell  and  St.  John  told  for 
the  supporters  of  the  bill,  who  numbered  forty-nine.  Mor- 
ley was  a  member  of  the  Council  of  State  during  1652  and 
1653,  but  after  the  forcible  expulsion  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons by  Cromwell  in  1653  he  seems  to  have  taken  little 
part  in  public  affairs  until  Cromwell's  death. 

The  Royalists,  though  crushed  for  the  time,  were  not 
idle.  In  1650  there  was  a  widespread  organization  through- 
out a  great  part  of  England  "  concerning  an  association  in 
the  King's  business."  One  Thomas  Coke  travelled  into 
several  counties  in  connection  with  this  plot,  which  aimed 
at  a  concerted  rising  in  various  places.  In  1651  he  was 
examined  before  the  Council  of  State,  and  confessed  his 

1  Council  of  State  Proceedings,  5th  February,  1651. 

2  Ibid.,  2ist  May  1651.  3  Thurloe,  iii,  581. 


228     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

proceedings  at  great  length,  revealing  the  names  of  all  con- 
cerned. It  did  not  appear  that  much  had  been  arranged  in 
Sussex,  but  Coke  believed  that  among  those  engaged  with 
Lord  Gerard,  in  his  "  design  for  Kent,  Surrey  and  Sussex," 
was  Mr.  Henry  Howard,  the  Earl  of  ArundeFs  son ;  and 
stated  that  in  Sussex  Mr.  Middleton  was  looked  on  as 
a  person  who  would  engage,  as  also  Mr.  Lewknor,  Sir 
Edward  Ford  and  Mr.  Gunter.  Coke  visited  Ford,  who 
added  the  names  of  Lord  Lumley  and  Colonel  Norton, 
formerly  Governor  of  Portsmouth;  and  advised  Coke  to 
consult  Mr.  Ashburnham,  which  he  had  not  done.1  Prob- 
ably all  this  was,  at  least  as  far  as  Sussex  was  concerned, 
little  more  than  brave  talk. 

One  of  Cromwell's  first  acts  was  to  abolish  the  grievance 
of  free-quarter,  which  had  weighed  so  heavily  on  the  county 
during  the  war.2  With  the  inception  of  the  New  Model 
attempts  had  been  made  to  remove  this  grievance.  On 
22nd  May  1646,  Fairfax  issued  an  Order:  "  Forasmuch  as 
the  Army  under  my  command  have  for  some  time  past  for 
want  of  pay  practised  free  quarter,  to  the  great  scandal 
thereof,  and  to  the  extreme  burden  of  the  country,  especi- 
ally those  parts  which  as  yet  do  pay  very  great  contribu- 
tions to  many  garrisons,  well  nigh  to  the  utter  undoing  of 
the  inhabitants.  In  consideration  whereof,  and  confidence 
of  due  pay  for  the  future,  I  do  hereby  strictly  charge  and 
order  all  officers  and  soldiers  whatsoever,  horse  and  foot, 
duly  to  discharge  their  quarters,  according  to  the  several 
rates  expressed  in  an  Ordinance  of  Parliament; — ^d.  a 
night  hay,  2d.  a  night  grass,  ^d.  a  peck  oats,  6d.  a  peck 

1  Portland  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.),  i,  578,  582. 

2  In  July  1652  Mr.  Frost  was  ordered  "to  pay  ^25  to  Anne  Dennie 
out  of  the  exigent  money  of  the  Council  of  State  for  quartering  soldiers 
at  Goring  House  for  three  months."  Anne,  daughter  of  Henry  Denny, 
was  the  mother  of  George  Goring,  Earl  of  Norwich,  and  must  have 
been  at  this  date  of  very  advanced  age,  as  the  Earl  himself  died 
in    1663,   aged   about   eighty  (see   Cal.   S.    P.    Dom.,    Interregnum, 
xxiv,  61). 


THE  REVOLUTION  229 

pease  and  beans,  and  also  %d.  a  day  for  the  diet  of  every 
trooper  or  horseman,  yd.  a  day  for  every  dragooner,  and 
6d,  a  day  for  every  foot  soldier,  pioneer,  waggoner  or  carter 
that  shall  not  be  officers  by  Commission.  Every  Officer  by 
Commission,  or  person  of  the  Life-guard  troop,  shall  pay 
the  full  value  for  his  provisions,  both  for  horse  and  man." 
If  for  want  of  pay  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  pay  at  the 
time,  they  were  to  "give  ticket"  for  such  provisions  as 
they  required.1  But  this  was  a  counsel  of  perfection,  and 
had  failed  to  remove  the  grievance.  We  have  seen  that  the 
Corporation  of  Rye,  in  1648,  spoke  of  "  the  kingdom  groan- 
ing under  the  burden  of  free-quarter."2  Even  after  its 
abolition  by  Cromwell,  it  sometimes  remained  in  fact. 

The  garrison  of  Rye,  in  particular,  continued  to  be  a 
severe  incubus,  and  we  find  the  corporation  petition- 
ing for  its  withdrawal,  and  also  for  the  repayment  of  sums 
of  money  advanced  to  officers.3  Later  on,  under  the  Pro- 
tectorate, this  grievance  became  very  acute.  It  was  com- 
plained that  the  strict  enforcement  of  garrison  rules,  as  to 
the  disarming  of  strangers  entering  the  town,  had  caused  an 
"  utter  cessation  of  gentlemen's  access  "  to  it,  whereby  the 
trade  of  the  town  was  abundantly  decayed.4  Another 
vexation  was  the  number  of  disbanded  soldiers,  and  other 
undesirable  strangers,  who  were  perhaps  attracted  to  the 
seaport  towns  by  the  general  adventurousness  of  life  in 
such  places.  The  established  tradesmen  complained  of  the 
competition  of  these  strangers  in  setting  up  and  exercising 
public  trades  and  callings,  and  the  authorities  feared  that  if 
suffered  to  remain  until  they  became  by  law  inhabitants, 
they  might  in  process  of  time  become  a  parish  charge.5 
These  troubles,  together  with  the  increase  of  alehouses  and 
brewers,  are  mentioned  as  among  "  the  visible  causes 

1  Perfect  Occurrences,  22nd  to  2Qth  May  1646. 

*  Ante,  p.  215. 

3  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  233.          4  Ibid.,  p.  230. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  217. 


230     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

threatening  the  destruction  and  ruin  of  this  town  if  not 
prevented." 

The  case  of  the  disbanded  soldiers  was  a  hard  one — 
"who  desiring  to  exercise  manual  occupations  and  other 
means  to  get  themselves  a  livelihood  are  denied  the  same 
within  several  corporations.'"  In  September  1654  Crom- 
well issued  an  ordinance  dealing  with  the  hindrances, 
such  as  by-laws  and  customs,  imposed  on  them  by  such 
corporations  as  that  of  Rye.  He  ordered  that  any  soldier, 
who  had  served  in  the  army  of  the  Parliament  for  not  less 
than  four  years,  between  1642  and  1651,  should  be  free  to 
practise  his  trade  or  occupation  in  any  place  in  spite  of  any 
legal  restrictions.2 

With  the  establishment  of  the  Common  wealth  the  practice 
of  Puritan  principles  became  more  precise.  Chief  among 
these  was  the  strict  observance  of  Sunday.  The  proclama- 
tion of  James  I,  renewed  by  Charles  I,  known  as  the  "  Book 
of  Sports,"  provided  for  a  Sunday  which  most  people  in 
our  day  would  consider  reasonable  enough.  After  referring 
to  "  the  complaints  of  our  people  that  they  were  barred 
from  all  lawful  recreation  and  exercise  on  the  Sunday 
afternoon,  after  the  ending  of  all  divine  service,"  it  pro- 
ceeded to  ask,  "  When  shall  the  common  people  have  leave 
to  exercise  if  not  upon  the  Sundays  and  holy  days,  seeing 
they  must  apply  their  labour  and  win  their  living  in  all 
working  days?  Our  pleasure  therefore  is  that  no  lawful  re- 
creation shall  be  barred  to  our  good  people  which  shall  not 
tend  to  the  breach  of  our  laws  and  canons  of  our  Church, 
and  our  pleasure  is  that  after  the  end  of  Divine  Service  our 
good  people  be  not  disturbed,  letted  or  discouraged  from 
any  lawful  recreation,  such  as  dancing,  either  men  or 
women,  archery  for  men,  leaping,  vaulting,  or  any  other 
harmless  recreation;  or  from  having  of  May-games,  Whit- 
sun-ales,  and  Morris-dances,  and  other  sports  therewith 

1  Army  Petition,  I2th  August  1652. 

2  Scobell,  Acts  and  Ordinances,  ii,  357,  389. 


THE  REVOLUTION  231 

used,  so  as  the  same  be  had  in  due  and  convenient  time, 
without  impediment  or  neglect  of  Divine  service,  and  that 
women  shall  have  leave  to  carry  rushes  to  church  for  de- 
corating it  according  to  their  old  custom."  This  proclama- 
tion, to  which  was  added  a  proviso  that  no  one  should 
engage  in  such  amusements  who  had  not  previously 
attended  Divine  service,  was  ordered  to  be  read  in  parish 
churches.  To  the  Puritans  such  a  practice  as  it  enjoined 
was  anathema,  and  with  the  establishment  of  the  Common- 
wealth official  prohibition  was  given  to  it;  though  doubt- 
less it  had  actually  ceased  throughout  the  war.  Every  sort 
of  amusement  was  forbidden  on  Sunday,  and  the  most 
trivial  infringements  of  this  order  were  the  subject  of 
presentment  by  grand  juries.  In  1654  the  Grand  Inquest 
of  Rye  presented  three  boys  for  sliding  on  the  ice  on 
the  Sabbath  day.1  Even  the  professional  tramp,  "  rogue, 
vagabond  or  beggar"  had  to  cease  his  tramping,  and  be 
bundled  off  to  church  by  the  parish  constable,  there  to 
remain  "  soberly  and  orderly  during  the  time  of  Divine 
worship." 

Doubtless  the  unfortunate  tendency  of  the  English  to 
flavour  recreation  with  an  excess  of  ale  gave  some  colour 
of  reason  to  Puritan  severity.  There  is  plenty  of  evidence 
of  the  increase  of  alehouses  and  brewers  already  men- 
tioned; war  is  thirsty  work.  In  1652  the  constables  of  the 
town  of  Rye  were  required  carefully  and  diligently  to  make 
search  and  inquisition  in  all  taverns,  inns,  alehouses,  tobacco 
houses  or  shops,  or  victualling  houses  for  the  discovery  and 
apprehension  of  those  who  shall  upon  the  Lord's  day  pro- 
fanely dance,  sing,  drink,  or  tipple  contrary  to  the  Act  of 
Parliament.8 

The  penalties  for  using  bad  language  seem  to  have  been 
very  severe.  On  I4th  March  1656,  the  constables  of  Rye 
were  ordered  to  levy  a  distress  of  £i  6s.  8d.  on  Alice,  the 

1  Inderwick,  The  Interregnum,  p.  55. 

*  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  220. 


232     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

wife  of  Robert  Batten,  seaman,  for  profanely  swearing 
four  oaths,  and  in  default  of  rinding  goods  to  the  value  of 
the  fine,  to  set  the  said  Alice  in  the  stocks  for  twenty-four 
hours.1  If,  as  is  not  improbable,  Robert  Batten  was  one  of 
the  seamen  impressed  at  the  time  for  service  in  the  navy,2 
his  poor  wife  might  have  been  excused  for  expressing  her 
feelings  strongly. 

It  was  not  only  on  Sunday  amusements  that  the  Puritan 
looked  askance.  The  old  recreations  of  the  country  folk — 
bear-baiting,  bull-baiting,  cock-fighting,  dancing,  boxing, 
quarter-staff — all  these  were  gradually  put  a  stop  to.  Race- 
meetings  were  frequently,  though  not  altogether,  forbidden,3 
sometimes  on  the  ground  that  they  served  as  a  cloak  for 
the  meeting  and  training  of  seditious  Cavaliers.  There  was 
certainly  some  reason  for  this;  for  example,  in  1658,  John 
Stapley,  George  Hutchinson  of  Cuckfield,  and  Captain 
Henry  Mallory  met  "at  Hangleton  race"  and  discussed 
the  details  of  the  plot  in  which  Stapley  was  engaged. 4 

Life  under  the  Commonwealth  must  have  been  indescrib- 
ably dull.  And  in  running  counter  to  the  natural  and 
healthy  tendencies  of  the  time  in  the  matter  of  Sunday 
observance,  the  Puritans  did  England  a  very  ill  service. 
They  dissociated  the  holy-day  and  the  holiday,  an  error 
into  which  the  Church  of  Rome,  with  her  penetrating  in- 
sight into  human  nature  and  its  needs,  has  not  fallen.  The 
gloom  in  which  the  Puritans  immersed  the  Lord's  day  has 
survived  almost  to  our  own  time;  the  reaction,  now  that  it 
has  come,  is  likely  to  go  far. 

With  the  exception  of  the  Dutch  war,  which  chiefly 
affected  the  maritime  towns,  little  seems  to  have  occurred 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  227. 

2  See/fty/,  p.  278. 

3  Ordinances  prohibiting  horse-racing  were  issued  in  July  1654, 
February  1655,  and  April  1658.    See  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com., 
xiii,  4),  p.  224;  Clarke  Papers,  iii,  130,  147. 

4  See  post,  p.  297. 


THE  REVOLUTION  233 

during  the  early  years  of  the  Commonwealth  to  ruffle  the 
calm  of  Sussex.  The  battle  was  won;  the  principles  for 
which  in  the  main  the  county  had  stood  throughout  the 
struggle  were  victorious ;  and  if  there  was  some  disappoint- 
ment that  the  millennium  had  not  arrived — that  harvests 
were  bad,  and  taxation  higher  than  ever — there  was  no 
open  disaffection. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SOME    SUSSEX    MEN 

T~)  EFERENCE  has  already  been  made  to  the  many 
J.X.  Sussex  men  who  in  one  way  or  another  were  closely 
connected  with  Charles  I,  and  shared  some  of  the  most 
memorable  incidents  of  his  life.  But  they  do  not  by  any 
means  complete  the  list  of  those  who  played  a  leading 
part  in  the  great  drama.  Alike  in  Parliament  and  in  the 
field,  in  divinity  and  in  the  law,  men  of  Sussex  birth  or 
descent  achieved  careers  of  eminence  and  distinction.  One 
at  least  has  left  an  imperishable  name. 

John  Selden,  the  greatest  Sussex  man  of  the  time, 
some  will  say  of  all  time — "the  glory  of  the  English 
nation,"  as  he  was  named  by  Grotius,  his  literary  an- 
tagonist— was  born  at  Salvington,  a  hamlet  of  West 
Tarring,  as  his  epitaph  in  the  Temple  Church  records. 

His  father  seems  to  have  been  of  the  yeoman  class;  his 
mother  was  daughter  and  heiress  of  Thomas  Baker  of 
Rustington,  a  connection  of  the  gentle  family  of  Baker  of 
Sissinghurst,  in  Kent.  He  was  born  in  1584,  and  at  an 
early  age  was  sent  to  the  free  school  at  Chichester,  whence, 
being  fourteen  years  old,  he  proceeded  to  Hart  Hall, 
Oxford.  He  is  said  to  have  owed  an  exhibition  there  to 
the  patronage  of  Bishop  Juxon.  Four  years  later  he 
removed  to  Clifford's  Inn,  and  subsequently  became  a 
member  of  the  Inner  Temple.  He  does  not  appear  to  have 
practised  much  at  the  Bar,  but  to  have  devoted  himself  to 
the  study  of  the  literary  and  historical  side  of  the  English 
law  and  Constitution.  In  a  very  few  years  he  attained  a  great 

234 


JOHN  SELDEN. 


SOME  SUSSEX  MEN  235 

reputation  as  an  author,  and  became  the  friend  and  asso- 
ciate of  the  most  eminent  literary  men  of  the  time — Arch- 
bishop Usher,  Sir  Robert  Cotton,  Camden,  Ben  Jonson, 
Browne,  and  Drayton.  His  great  work  on  Titles  of 
Honour  appeared  in  1614,  and  four  years  later  he  first 
came  into  collision  with  the  authorities  through  the  pub- 
lication of  his  History  of  Tythes.  He  approached  the 
subject  of  tithes  in  a  purely  antiquarian  spirit,  and  without 
impugning  the  divine  right  by  which  the  Church  claims 
them,  he  cited  numerous  authorities  of  weight  which  tended 
to  invalidate  it.  The  clergy  were  alarmed  and  the  King 
offended,  and  Selden  was  compelled  to  retract  his  views 
in  a  formal  document. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  relate  at  length  the  part  he 
played  in  the  stormy  Constitutional  struggle  now  about 
to  open;  a  few  main  points  in  his  career  must  suffice.  In 
1621  he  had  attained  the  position  of  the  chief  Constitu- 
tional authority  in  the  kingdom.  King  James  having 
imprudently  asserted  in  a  speech  to  Parliament  that  the 
privileges  of  both  Houses  were  originally  grants  from  the 
Crown,  both  Houses  consulted  Selden  on  the  subject.  In 
giving  his  opinion  he  defended  the  fair  prerogative,  but 
wholly  denied  James's  claims.  James  retaliated  by  com- 
mitting Selden  to  the  Tower,  and  with  childish  rage  tore 
the  Commons'  declaration  of  protest  from  their  Journals. 

Selden  was  soon  released,  and  in  1628  entered  Parlia- 
ment. The  pretensions  of  the  Crown  were  now  becoming 
more  extensive,  and  Selden  took  a  great  share  in  forming 
public  opinion  against  them.  He  spoke  on  all  the  great 
subjects  of  the  day,  and  his  words  were  listened  to  as  the 
dictates  of  an  oracle.  So  formidable  did  he  become,  that 
he  was  arrested  on  a  charge  of  using  seditious  language, 
and  kept  in  prison  for  four  years.  To  the  Long  Parliament 
he  was  returned  as  Member  for  the  University  of  Oxford, 
and  was  again  foremost  among  those  who  opposed  the 
Court.  In  1642  the  King  endeavoured  to  bribe  him  with 


236     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

an  offer  of  the  custody  of  the  Great  Seal,  but  in  a  letter  to 
Falkland  declining  it,  Selden  made  it  clear  that  he  would 
never  serve  the  King  separately  from  the  Parliament. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Civil  War  he  was  active  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  but  appears  later  to  have  become 
somewhat  disgusted  at  its  proceedings.  For  his  fellow 
members  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  he  did  not  disguise 
his  contempt.  When  they  were  disputing  about  a  passage 
of  Scripture,  he  observed  to  them,  "  Perhaps  in  your  little 
pocket  Bibles  with  gilt  leaves  the  translation  may  be  thus, 
but  the  Greek  or  Hebrew  signifies  thus — and  thus." 1 

He  died  in  1654.  He  left  a  fortune  of  £40,000,  which  he 
had  received  as  residuary  legatee  of  the  widow  of  his  friend 
the  Earl  of  Kent.  Of  this  he  left  each  of  his  nephews  and 
nieces  a  hundred  pounds,  and  the  balance  to  his  four 
executors.  "  I  have  no  one,"  he  was  wont  to  say,  "  to  make 
my  heir,  except  a  milkmaid ;  and  such  people  do  not  know 
what  to  do  with  a  great  estate."2  His  library  of  eight 
thousand  volumes  went  to  the  Bodleian. 

The  unique  position  which,  by  his  learning  and  integrity, 
Selden  attained  is  well  summed  up  by  an  anonymous 
author.3  "  He  appears  to  have  been  regarded  somewhat  in 
the  light  of  a  valuable  piece  of  national  property,  like  a 
museum,  or  great  public  library,  resorted  to  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  a  matter  of  right,  in  all  the  numerous  cases 
in  which  assistance  was  wanted  from  any  part  of  the 
whole  compass  of  legal  and  historical  learning.  He  appeared 
in  the  national  council  not  so  much  as  the  representative 
of  the  contemporary  inhabitants  of  a  particular  city,  as  of 
all  the  people  of  all  past  ages;  concerning  whom,  and 
whose  institutions,  he  was  deemed  to  know  whatever  was 
to  be  known,  and  to  be  able  to  furnish  whatever,  within 
so  vast  a  retrospect,  was  of  a  nature  to  give  light  and 

1  Whitelock's  Memoirs,  p.  68;  S.  A.  C.,  v,  80. 
'2  Lower's  Worthies  of  Sussex,  p.  10. 
3  Quoted  in  Lodge's  Portraits,  v,  57. 


SOME  SUSSEX  MEN  237 

authority  in  the  decision  of  questions  arising  in  a  doubtful 
and  hazardous  state  of  the  national  affairs." 

A  literary  man  of  a  different  calibre  was  Thomas  May. 
Sussex  has  been  fortunate  in  her  poets.    She  can  boast 
three  or  four  stars  of  the  first  magnitude,  and  quite  a  con- 
stellation of  minor  luminaries.  Among  these  May  shines  not 
the  least.    Son  of  Sir  Thomas  May  of  Mayfield,  he  was 
born  in  1595,  and  after  graduating  at  Cambridge,  went  to 
London  to  study  law  at  Gray's  Inn.    But  his  father's  lavish 
expenditure  having  left  him  in  straitened  circumstances  he 
adopted  literature  as  a  profession,  and  had  an  immediate 
success.    He  frequented  Court,  and  attracted  the  notice  of 
Charles  I  and  his  queen.    Encouraged  by  Ben  Jonson,  he 
wrote  several  plays,  but  his  greatest  work  was  his  translation 
of  Lucan's  Pharsalia ;  or  the  Civil  Warres  of  Rome,  between 
Pompey  the    Great   and   Julius  Caesar.     The  whole   ten 
bookes,  Englished,  published  in  1627.     He   also  wrote  in 
Latin  a  supplement  to  Lucan,  and  was  pronounced  in  later 
times  by  Dr.  Johnson  the  best  Latin  poet  of  England.    By 
Charles's  command  he  wrote  in  verse  The  Reign  of  King 
Henry  the  Second  in  Seven  Books,  and  also  The  Victorious 
Reign  of  Edward  the  Third.    It  is  said  that  he  was  dis- 
appointed in  not  being  appointed  Poet  Laureate  on  the 
death  of  Ben  Jonson,  when  D'Avenant  was  preferred.    From 
this  or  some  other  cause  his  loyalty  cooled,  and,  on  the 
outbreak  of  Civil  War,  he  sided  with  the  Parliament.    He 
was  appointed  Secretary  for  the  Parliament  in  1646,  and 
the  following  year,  by   order   of  the   House,  wrote  The 
History  of  the  Parliament  of  England — a    brief  account 
of  the  civil  wars,  pronounced  by  Chatham  "  honester  and 
more  instructive  than  Clarendon's."    He  died  in  1650.    He 
was  in  perfect  health  though  of  a  full  habit,  and  took  a 
"  chearful  bottle "  as  usual  before  retiring  one  night ;  he 
was  found  dead  in  his  bed  in  the  morning,  having  tied 
the  strings  of  his  nightcap  too  tightly  under  his  chin,  which 
produced  suffocation — a  catastrophe  which  caused  much 


238     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

merriment  in  Royalist  circles,  and  was  the  occasion  of  a 
poem  by  Andrew  Marvell,  full  of  bitter  vituperation.1  He 
was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey,  but  Royalist  spite  at 
the  Restoration  cast  down  his  monument,  and  removed 
his  bones  to  a  pit  belonging  to  St.  Margaret's  Church. 

Associated  with  Thomas  May  in  the  secretaryship  of 
the  House  of  Commons  was  Henry  Parker,  fourth  son  of 
Sir  Nicholas  Parker  of  Ratton,  Sussex.  Educated  at  St. 
Edmund  Hall,  Oxford,  and  called  to  the  Bar  in  1637,  he 
was  at  first  a  Presbyterian,  but  later  inclined  to  the  Inde- 
pendents, and  is  described  by  Anthony  Wood  as  "  a  man 
of  dangerous  and  anti-monarchical  principles."  In  con- 
junction with  May  and  John  Sadler,  he  deciphered  and 
transcribed  the  King's  papers  taken  at  Naseby,  and  pub- 
lished The  King's  Cabinet  Opened.  After  spending  three 
years  at  Hamburg  as  secretary  to  the  Company  of  Mer- 
chant Adventurers,  he  was  appointed  in  1649  secretary  to 
Cromwell's  army  in  Ireland  ("a  brewer's  clerk,"  says 
Anthony  Wood),  and  died  there  in  1652.* 

Sussex  seems  to  have  been  no  less  prolific  of  bishops 

than  of  poets.    Fuller,  writing  in  1662,  remarks:  "As  to  the 

nativities  of  Archbishops,  one  may  say  of  this   county, 

'  many  shires  have  done  worthily,  but  Sussex  surmounteth 

them  all,' — having  bred  five  Arch-bishops  of  Canterbury,  and 

at  this  instant  claiming  for  her  natives  the  two  metropolitans 

of  our  nation  " — Juxon  and  Frewen.  Accepted  Frewen3  was 

born  in  1588,  the  eldest  son  of  John  Frewen,  the  Puritan 

rector  of  Northiam,  whose  epitaph  records  that  he  was 

ECCLESIAE  ANGLICANAE 

CONTRA  PONTIFICIOS 

VINDEX  ACERRIMUS 

UT  PLURIMA  IPSIUS  OPERA 

SAEPIUS  TYPIS  MANDATA  ABUNDE 

TESTANTUR. 

1  Lower's  Worthies  of  Sussex,  p.  153.  -  D.  N.  B. 

3  See  ante,  p.  24. 


SOME  SUSSEX  MEN  239 

The  young  Accepted  received  his  early  education  at 
the  free  school  at  Canterbury,  whence  he  proceeded  to 
Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  of  which  foundation  he  became 
a  fellow  in  1612.  In  1617  he  obtained  leave  of  absence  for 
a  year  in  order  to  act  as  chaplain  to  Sir  John  Digby, 
Ambassador  to  Spain ; l  whom  he  also  accompanied  on  a 
mission  to  Germany.  In  1622  he  was  again  in  Spain  with 
Digby,  now  Earl  of  Bristol,  on  the  occasion  of  Prince 
Charles's  visit  to  court  the  Infanta.  Seeing  the  attempts 
made  to  convert  the  English  prince  to  Romanism  he 
preached  before  him,  on  the  text :  "  How  long  halt  ye 
between  two  opinions?  If  the  Lord  be  God,  follow  him; 
but  if  Baal, then  follow  him."2  The  sermon  was  a  powerful 
plea  in  favour  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  made  a  great 
impression  on  Charles,  who  on  his  accession  added  Frewen's 
name  to  his  list  of  chaplains  with  his  own  hand.  He  became 
successively  Canon  of  Canterbury,  President  of  Magdalen 
and  Dean  of  Gloucester,  and  Dean  of  Wells ;  and  held  also 
two  livings  in  the  gift  of  his  College.  In  1642  he  was 
mainly  instrumental  in  inducing  the  Oxford  Colleges  to 
send  their  plate  to  the  King  at  York ;  and  he  provided  out 
of  his  own  purse  £500,  which  was  given  as  a  contribution 
on  the  part  of  Magdalen  to  the  Royal  cause.  The  Parlia- 
ment then  ordered  his  arrest,  whereupon  he  withdrew,  and 
only  returned  to  Oxford  with  the  King  after  the  battle  of 
Edgehill.  In  1643  ne  was  preferred  to  the  See  of  Lichfield, 
and  the  following  year  was  consecrated  by  Archbishop 
Williams  in  Magdalen  College  Chapel.  In  1652  his  estate 
was  declared  to  be  forfeited  for  treason  against  the  Parlia- 
ment, but  escaped  owing  to  his  being  erroneously  desig- 
nated "  Stephen  Frewen,  D.D.,  late  of  the  University  of 
Oxford."  Stephen  Frewen,  Accepted's  half-brother,  was  a 
furrier,  a  member  of  the  Skinners'  Company,  and  an  Alder- 
man of  London,  and  seems  to  have  kept  in  with  both 

1  Registers  of  Magdalen  College. 
*  Lower's  Worthies  of  Sussex,  p.  50. 


24o     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

sides.1  Another  brother,  Benjamin,  was  a  haberdasher.2  A 
similar  mistake  as  to  his  Christian  name  had  enabled  Ac- 
cepted Frewen  to  escape  a  greater  peril  when  Cromwell 
had  offered  a  thousand  pounds  to  any  one  who  would  bring 
him  dead  or  alive.3  The  Bishop  withdrew  to  France  until 
the  fury  of  the  times  abated,  when  he  returned  to  England 
and  lived  in  retirement.  At  the  Restoration  he  was  nomin- 
ated Archbishop  of  York.  Dr.  King,  Bishop  of  Chichester, 
had  been  designed  for  this  preferment,  but  he  "  withdrew 
himself  into  the  country,  and  through  his  negligence  and 
carelessness  in  not  following  it  up  as  he  ought  to  have  done, 
Dr.  Frewen,  the  Bishop  of  Coventry  and  Lichfield,  got  it 
from  him,  and  by  this  means  he  continues  here,  to  his  loss 
and  my  prejudice," 4  as  another  clergyman  complained. 

Frewen  died  in  1664,  and  was  buried  in  his  own  cathedral. 
He  is  described  as  a  mild  and  peaceable  man,  of  some 
eccentricity;  he  had  an  aversion  to  women,  and  would 
never  allow  a  woman-servant  in  his  establishment  at  any 
period  of  his  life.  A  happy  turn  for  holding  pluralities 
enabled  him  to  leave  a  large  fortune. 

While  Archbishop  Frewen  was  inducing  the  colleges  of 
Oxford  to  melt  their  plate  for  the  King's  service,  another 
Sussex  ecclesiastic  was  endeavouring  to  persuade  the 
Cambridge  authorities  to  do  their  colleges  the  same  ill 
service.  Thomas  Comber  came  of  a  family  which  claimed 
to  possess  the  manor  of  Barkham  in  Fletching  by  gift  from 
William  the  Conqueror,  for  the  slaying  of  a  Saxon  lord  at 
the  battle  of  Hastings.5  He  is  said  to  have  been  born  at 
Shermanbury  in  1575,  the  twelfth  child  of  Richard  Comber, 
Clarencieux  King-at-Arms,  and  to  have  had  his  school- 

1  See  A  History  of  Brickwall,  etc.,  by  A.  L.  Frewen,  1909. 

2  S.  A.  C.,  iv,  24. 

3  Mr.  Lower  gives  no  authority  for  this  rather  remarkable  story, 
which  is  copied  in  the  D.  N.  B. 

1  Letter  of  Dr.  Edward  Burton,  rector  of  Broadwater,  who  through 
this  mischance  lost  the  bishopric  of  Chichester.    S.  A.  C.,  xi,  33. 
6  Lower,  Worthies  of  Sussex,  p.  307. 


SOME  SUSSEX  MEN  241 

ing  at  Collyer's  School,  Horsham.1  In  1593  he  proceeded 
to  Trinity,  Cambridge,  and  four  years  later  became  a  fellow 
and  later  Master  of  the  College.  On  the  outbreak  of  civil 
war,  he  espoused  the  King's  cause,  and  incurred  the  enmity 
of  the  Parliament  for  urging  the  heads  of  the  other  colleges 
to  the  course  above-mentioned.  For  this,  and  refusing  to 
take  the  Covenant,  he  was  deprived  of  all  his  preferments 
and  imprisoned.  He  died  in  1653. 

Two  divines  of  Sussex  origin  rose  to  eminence  on  the 
Puritan  side.  Philip  Nye,  the  great  Independent  preacher, 
was  the  eldest  son  of  Henry  Nye,  rector  of  Clapham  in 
Sussex,  and  was  born  about  1596.  John  Pell,  mathematician 
and  diplomatist,  was  born  at  Southwick,  near  Brighton,  in 
1611,  and  educated  at  Steyning  Grammar  School.  He  was 
Cromwell's  political  agent  to  the  Cantons  of  Switzerland 
from  1654  to  1658. 

Samuel  Gott,  member  for  various  Sussex  constituencies 
throughout  this  period,  was  a  man  of  varied  activities  and 
considerable  local  influence — a  politician,  an  author,  a  man 
of  business,  and  a  country  Justice  of  the  Peace.  Born  in 
1613,  the  son  of  an  ironmonger  of  London,  he  was  educated 
at  Cambridge  and  called  to  the  Bar  at  Gray's  Inn.  Shortly 
after  his  father's  death  in  1641  he  married  a  daughter  of 
Peter  Farnden,  ironmaster,  of  Sedlescombe,  and  went  to 
reside  at  Battle.  In  1645  Gott  and  Henry  Oxenden  became 
members  for  Winchelsea  in  the  Long  Parliament  vice  Sir 
J.  Finch  deceased  and  William  Smyth  disabled.2  To  the 
Parliament  of  1656  he  was  elected  for  the  county  of  Sus- 
sex, and  to  Richard  Cromwell's  Parliament  of  1659  for 
Hastings.  In  this  House  he  spoke  in  faint  praise  of  Crom- 
well's new  lords.3  The  Latin  Romance,  Nova  Solyma, 
previously  attributed  with  some  plausibility  to  John  Milton, 

1  Hay,  History  of  Chichester,  p.  510. 

2  Return   of    Members   of    Parliament:    ordered    to    be    printed, 

1879- 

3  Burton's  Diary,  London,  1828,  iv,  57. 

R 


242     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

has  recently  been  shown  to  be  his  work.1  He  published 
two  or  three  other  books,  of  a  devotional  character.  He 
died  in  1671,  and  was  buried  at  Battle. 

Among  the  soldiers  of  fortune  who  hurried  back  to 
England  from  the  continent  when  the  King  raised  his 
standard  was  Henry  Gage,  a  scion  of  the  ancient  Sussex 
family  of  Firle,  which  had  consistently  maintained  its  adher- 
ence to  the  Catholic  religion.  His  great-grandfather  was 
the  celebrated  Sir  John  Gage,  who  was  Constable  of  the 
Tower  under  Henry  VIII,  and  again  under  Mary,  when  he 
had  charge  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth.  There  was  no  more 
honourable  and  gallant  figure  than  that  of  Henry  Gage  on 
the  Royalist  side,  and  his  untimely  death  called  forth  a 
chorus  of  lamentation.  He  is  thus  described  by  Clarendon : 
"  In  truth  a  very  extraordinary  man,  of  a  large  and  very 
graceful  person,  of  an  honourable  extraction,  his  grand- 
father having  been  a  Knight  of  the  Garter;  besides  his 
great  experience  and  abilities  as  a  soldier,  which  were  very 
eminent,  he  had  very  great  parts  of  breeding,  being  a  very 
good  scholar  in  the  polite  parts  of  learning,  a  great  master 
in  the  Spanish  and  Italian  tongues,  besides  the  French  and 
Dutch,  which  he  spoke  in  great  perfection ;  having  scarce 
been  in  England  in  twenty  years  before.  He  was  likewise 
very  conversant  in  Courts;  having  for  many  years  been 
much  esteemed  in  that  of  the  Arch-Duke  and  Duchess 
Albert  and  Isabella,  at  Brussels ;  which  was  a  very  great 
and  regular  Court  at  that  time ;  so  that  he  deserved  to  be 
looked  upon  as  a  very  wise  and  accomplished  person.  Of 
this  gentleman  the  Lords  of  the  Council  had  a  singular 
esteem,  and  consulted  frequently  with  him,  whilst  they 
looked  to  be  besieged;  and  thought  Oxford  to  be  the  more 
secure  for  his  being  in  it,  which  rendered  him  so  ungrateful 
to  the  governor,  Sir  Arthur  [Aston],  that  he  crossed  him  in 
anything  he  proposed  and  hated  him  perfectly,  as  they 

1  The  Library,  Third  Series,  No.  3,  Vol.  i,  July  1910. 


SOME  SUSSEX  MEN  243 

were  of  natures  and  manners  as  different  as  men  could 
be." 

Gage's  chief  performances  in  the  war  were  in  connection 
with  Basing  House,  which  he  twice  relieved,  and  the  capture 
of  Borstall  House,  when  he  placed  Sir  William  Campion  in 
command  of  the  garrison.1  He  was  knighted  by  the  King 
at  Oxford  in  November  1644,  and  shortly  after  appointed 
Governor  of  Oxford,  in  place  of  the  unpopular  Sir  Arthur 
Aston.  But  he  was  not  destined  to  enjoy  this  honour  long. 
The  town  of  Abingdon,  distant  only  some  six  miles,  and 
strongly  garrisoned  by  the  Parliament,  had  long  been  a 
thorn  in  the  side  of  Oxford,  and  with  the  approval  of 
Prince  Rupert,  Sir  Henry  Gage  proposed  to  construct  a 
fort  at  Culham  Bridge  to  keep  the  Abingdon  forces  in 
check.  On  nth  January  1645,  he  marched  out  of  Oxford 
at  the  head  of  a  party  of  horse  and  foot.  Major-General 
Browne,  the  Parliamentary  commander  at  Abingdon,  was 
on  the  alert  and  a  sharp  skirmish  ensued.  Sir  Henry  Gage 
was  wounded  by  a  musket  ball,  and  died  a  few  hours  after- 
wards.2 "  His  body  was  afterwards  interred  at  Oxford  with 
funebrious  exequies  and  solemnities  answerable  to  his 
merits,  who,  having  done  His  Majesty  special  service,  was 
whilst  living,  generally  beloved,  and  dead  is  still  universally 
lamented." 

Henry  Gage's  brother  Thomas  affords  an  example  of 
those  extraordinarily  varied  careers  in  which  the  time 
abounded.  Having  become  a  Spanish  Dominican  in  early 
youth,  he  lived  some  time  among  the  Indians  of  Central 
America;  he  crossed  Nicaragua,  reached  Panama  and  tra- 
versing the  Isthmus  sailed  from  Portobello,  reaching 
Europe  in  1637.  After  a  visit  to  Loreto  he  renounced 
Catholicism  and  came  to  England  in  1641.  He  preached 
his  recantation  sermon  in  St.  Paul's,  and  joined  the  Parlia- 
mentary party.  He  was  appointed  vicar  of  Acrise  in  1642, 

1  See  p.  192.        2  See  Godwin,  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  ch.  xxvi. 


244 

and  subsequently  vicar  of  Deal.  In  1648  he  published  his 
great  book,  The  English- American  his  Travail  by  Sea  and 
Land.  But  he  seems  to  have  tired  of  the  quiet  life  of  an 
English  vicar,  for  when  Admiral  Sir  William  Penn  was 
appointed,  in  1654,  General  and  Commander-in-Chief  to  act 
against  the  Spanish  West  Indies,  in  conjunction  with  General 
Robert  Venables,  Gage  joined  the  expedition  as  Venables' 
chaplain.  After  a  repulse  at  San  Domingo,  Jamaica  was 
captured.  Gage  died  in  that  island  in  1656.  Venables  re- 
turned to  England  to  find  himself  in  disgrace,  the  import- 
ance and  wealth  of  Jamaica  being  imperfectly  known: 
"  Under  Cromwell,"  says  Captain  Mahan,  "  the  conquest  of 
Jamaica  began  that  extension  of  England's  empire  by 
force  of  arms  which  has  gone  on  ever  since."1  He  was 
lodged  in  the  Tower  and  cashiered.  Perhaps  he  was 
meant  by  nature  for  quieter  times;  he  is  chiefly  remem- 
bered as  the  author  of  a  treatise  on  the  gentle  art  of 
angling,  published  in  1662,  nine  years  after  Izaak 
Walton's. 

In  a  former  chapter  mention  has  been  made  of  the  early 
life  of  Sir  Thomas  Lunsford,  and  of  the  storm  occa- 
sioned by  his  appointment  to  the  Lieutenancy  of  the  Tower.2 
Some  further  particulars  of  this  extraordinary  character 
may  be  noted  here.  Of  him  and  his  twin  brother,  Herbert, 
a  contemporary  wrote  that  they  were  "  both  the  biggest 
men,  though  twins,  you  could  likely  see  to,  whereof  Sir 
Thomas  was  feigned  by  the  Brethren,  a  devourer  of 
children."3  The  popular  belief  that  he  was  a  cannibal,  and 
the  use  of  his  name  as  a  bugbear,  are  alluded  to  by  Butler 
in  Hudibras,  speaking  of  preachers,  who 

Make  children  with  their  tones  to  run  fort 
As  bad  as  Bloody-bones  or  Lunsford. 


1  Influence  of  Sea  Power  on  History,  p.  60. 

2  Ante,  p.  19. 

3  D.  Lloyd's  Loyalists,  p.  581 ;  S.  A.  C.,  v,  81. 


Ovpostrs   of  tnc  Prelacy. 

tttventer  therefore  life  to  ha.ve   redrcsf 

JWjicking.iteaKtuj.wby  cuttitw   th routes. 

dltntugh  my jrrachce  crosst  tfafiMdcmsvotts. 


SIR  THOMAS  LUNSFORU, 


SOME  SUSSEX  MEN  245 

At  the  battle  of  Edgehill  he  was  falsely  reported  killed,  and 
a  popular  ballad  of  the  day  reported 

The  Post  that  came  from  Banbury 
Riding  in  his  blue  rocket, 
He  swore  he  saw  when  Lunsford  fell 
A  child's  arm  in  his  pocket. 

Sir  Thomas  was  not  killed  at  Edgehill,  but  made  prisoner. 
He  was  exchanged  in  1644,  joined  the  King  at  Oxford,  and 
distinguished  himself  at  Bristol  and  at  Monmouth.  He 
seems  to  have  retired  to  Virginia  in  1649,  and  to  have  died 
there  a  few  years  later.1  His  twin  brother,  Herbert,  rose  to 
the  command  of  a  regiment,  and  was  knighted  in  July 
1644. 

To  relate  fully  the  history  of  the  Gorings  of  Danny, 
father  and  son,  would  almost  be  to  tell  again  the  history  of 
the  Civil  War.  It  may  be  briefly  sketched  here. 

George  Goring  of  Ovingdean,  a  son  of  Sir  William 
Goring  of  Burton,  knight,  married  Anne,  daughter  of 
Henry  Denny,  Esq.,  of  Waltham  in  Essex,  and  sister  of 
Edward  Denny,  Earl  of  Norwich.  He  acquired  the  manor 
of  Hurstpierpoint,  and  built  the  noble  mansion  of  Danny. 
His  son  George,  born  about  1583,  is  said  to  have  begun  his 
life  at  Court  as  one  of  the  gentlemen  pensioners  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  He  certainly  became  one  of  the  most  favoured 
courtiers  of  James  and  Charles.  In  1628  he  was  raised  to 
the  peerage  as  Baron  Goring.  Offices  were  heaped  upon 
him;  and  he  was  concerned  in  some  of  the  King's  most  un- 
wise and  oppressive  schemes  for  raising  money.  He  was 
chief  among  the  persons  to  whom,  in  1636,  the  tobacco 
monopoly  was  granted;  and  his  income  in  1641-2  was 
estimated  at  ^26,800  a  year.2  The  Long  Parliament  put  an 
end  to  his  prosperity,  and  his  fortune  was  expended  in  the 
King's  service  during  the  war. 

His  eldest  son  George,  by  his  wife  Mary,  second  daughter 

1  D.  N.  B.  2  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  II,  Ixvii,  19. 


246     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Edward  Nevill,  sixth  Lord  Abergavenny,  was  born  in 
1608.  His  surrender  of  Portsmouth,  of  which  he  was  in 
command  at  the  outbreak  of  war,  has  already  been  re- 
corded. Goring  went  to  Holland,  and  having  recruited 
there  a  number  of  officers  and  veteran  soldiers  for  the 
King's  service,  landed  at  Newcastle  three  months  later,  in 
December  1642.  The  Earl  of  Newcastle  made  him  master 
of  his  horse.  In  the  following  May  he  was  taken  prisoner 
by  Fairfax  at  the  storming  of  Wakefield,  and  imprisoned  in 
the  Tower  until  April  1644,  when  he  was  exchanged  for 
the  Earl  of  Lowthian.  Meantime  his  father  had  been  sent 
to  France  as  ambassador  to  negotiate  for  a  French  alliance, 
and  had  received  from  Mazarin  promises  of  arms  and 
money.  He  had  also  pawned  the  Queen's  jewels  for  large 
sums,  and  Bwith  the  proceeds  was  sending  a  considerable 
store  of  arms  to  England.1  A  letter  of  his  to  the  Queen  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Parliament,  and  he  was  promptly  im- 
peached for  high  treason.  The  King  rewarded  his  zeal  by 
creating  him  Earl  of  Norwich  on  28th  November  1644; 
the  earldom  having  become  extinct  by  the  recent  death  of 
his  uncle,  Edward  Denny. 

George  Goring  the  younger,  now  by  courtesy  Lord  Gor- 
ing, had  been  appointed  in  the  previous  August  Lieutenant- 
General  of  the  horse  in  the  King's  main  army,  in  place 
of  Wilmot,  with  whom  he  had  been  at  enmity  since  his  re- 
velation of  the  "army  plot"  to  the  Parliament  in  1641. 
Clarendon,  who  hates  both,  seizes  the  opportunity  to  make 
a  masterly  characterization  by  way  of  contrast.  "  Goring, 
who  was  now  general  of  the  horse,  was  no  more  gracious  to 
Prince  Rupert  than  Wilmot  had  been;  and  had  all  the 
other's  faults,  and  wanted  his  regularity  and  preserving  his 
respect  with  his  offices.  Wilmot  loved  debauchery,  but 
shut  it  out  from  his  business;  and  never  neglected  that, 
and  rarely  miscarried  in  it.  Goring  had  much  a  better 
understanding  and  a  sharper  wit  (except  in  the  very  exer- 

1  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  xiii. 


SOME  SUSSEX  MEN  247 

cise  of  debauchery,  and  then  the  other  was  inspired),  a 
much  keener  courage,  and  presentness  of  mind  in  danger : 
Wilmot  discerned  it  farther  off,  and  because  he  could  not 
behave  himself  so  well  in  it,  commonly  prevented  or  warily 
declined  it,  and  never  drank  when  he  was  within  distance 
of  an  enemy:  Goring  was  not  able  to  resist  the  temptation 
when  he  was  in  the  middle  of  them,  nor  would  decline  it  to 
obtain  a  victory,  and  in  one  of  those  fits  he  suffered  the 
horse  to  escape  out  of  Cornwall ;  and  the  most  signal  mis- 
fortunes of  his  life  in  war  had  their  rise  from  that  uncon- 
trolable  license.  Neither  of  them  valued  their  promises, 
professions  or  friendships,  according  to  any  rules  of  honour 
or  integrity ;  but  Wilmot  violated  them  the  less  willingly, 
and  never  but  for  some  great  benefit  or  convenience  to  him- 
self: Goring  without  scruple,  out  of  humour,  or  for  wit 
sake,  and  loved  no  man  so  well  but  that  he  would  cozen 
him,  and  then  expose  him  to  the  public  mirth  for  having 
been  cozened ;  and  therefore  he  had  always  fewer  friends 
than  the  other,  but  more  company,  for  no  man  had  a  wit 
that  pleased  the  company  better.  The  ambitions  of  both 
were  unlimited,  and  so  equally  incapable  of  being  con- 
tented; and  both  unrestrained  by  any  respect  to  good- 
nature or  justice  from  pursuing  the  satisfaction  thereof:  yet 
Wilmot  had  more  scruples  from  religion  to  startle  him,  and 
would  not  have  attained  his  end  by  any  gross  or  foul  act  of 
wickedness:  Goring  could  have  passed  through  these 
pleasantly,  and  would  without  hesitation  have  broken  any 
trust,  or  done  any  act  of  treachery,  to  have  satisfied  an  or- 
dinary passion  or  appetite;  and,  in  truth,  wanted  nothing 
but  industry  (for  he  had  wit  and  courage  and  understand- 
ing and  ambition,  uncontrolled  by  any  fear  of  God  or  man) 
to  have  been  as  any  man  in  the  age  he  lived  in  or  before. 
And  of  all  his  qualifications  dissimulation  was  his  master- 
piece ;  in  which  he  so  much  excelled,  that  men  were  not 
ordinarily  ashamed,  or  out  of  countenance,  with  being  de- 
ceived but  twice  by  him." 


248     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

In  December  1644  Goring  was  appointed  Lieutenant- 
General  of  Hampshire,  Sussex,  Surrey,  and  Kent;  and 
during  the  following  year  commanded  the  Royal  army  in 
the  west.  It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  the  course  of  his  pro- 
ceedings, an  almost  unbroken  record  of  defeat,  lost  oppor- 
tunities, and  debauchery.  When  the  King's  army  finally  sur- 
rendered to  Fairfax  in  March  1646,  Goring  was  in  France.1 

The  Earl  of  Norwich  played  an  important  part  in  the 
second  Civil  War  of  1648.  He  had  come  to  England  at 
the  end  of  1647  with  a  pass  from  Parliament,  under  pre- 
tence of  making  his  composition.  He  was  appointed  to 
the  command  of  the  King's  forces  in  Kent.  "  He  found," 
says  Clarendon,  "  the  assembly  at  Maidstone  very  numer- 
ous; he  found  them  likewise  very  disorderly  and  without 
government,  nor  easy  to  be  reduced  under  any  command. 
.  .  .  The  earl  was  a  man  fitter  to  have  drawn  such  a  body 
together  by  his  frolic  and  pleasant  humour,  which  recon- 
ciled people  of  all  constitutions  wonderfully  to  him,  than  to 
form  and  conduct  them  towards  any  enterprise.  He  had  al- 
ways lived  in  the  Court,  in  such  a  station  of  business  as  raised 
him  very  few  enemies ;  and  his  pleasant  and  jovial  nature, 
which  was  everywhere  acceptable,  made  him  many  friends, 
at  least  made  many  delighted  in  his  company."2  Foiled  in 
his  attempt  to  cause  a  rising  in  London,  he  crossed  into 
Essex  and  occupied  Colchester,  where  he  was  besieged  by 
Fairfax.  After  a  siege  of  over  two  months  he  was  com- 
pelled by  starvation  to  surrender  on  27th  August. 

It  was  during  the  siege  of  Colchester  that  Sir  William 
Campion  of  Combwell,  ancestor  of  the  Campions  of  Danny, 
was  killed  in  a  sortie,  as  has  already  been  mentioned. 
Lord  Norwich  thus  announced  his  death  to  his  widow: 

Colchester,  June  26th  1648. 

"  MADAM, 

"To  offer  you  set  comfort  upon  soe  inexpressible 
a  losse,  would  be  noe  less  indiscretion  in   me,  than  im- 

1  See  ante,  p.  183.  2  Clarendon,  xi,  55. 


SOME  SUSSEX  MEN  249 

portunity  to  you.  I  shall  therefore  only  begg  this  on 
favour  from  you,  for  his  sake  that  your  ladyship  loved 
most;  and  I  next,  that  if  you  can  any  waye  finde  wherein 
I  may  sacrifice  ought  to  his  memory,  to  the  hazard  of  all  I 
am  or  ever  may  be,  your  ladyship  shall  then  see,  by  the 
passion  wherewith  I  shall  undertake  it,  how  really  I  was 
his,  and  how  sincerely,  madam,  I  am,  madam,  your  lady- 
ship's all  bound  and  faithful  servant, 

"  NORWICH." 

"  I  most  humbly  pray  your  ladyship  to  let  my  wife 
know,  I  never  was  better  in  health  and  heart  in  all  my 
life,  and  that  I  wrote  to  her  twice  very  lately."1 

Norwich  was  tried  before  a  high  court  specially  con- 
stituted, and  condemned  to  death.  He  was  respited  by  the 
House  of  Commons — the  casting  vote  of  the  Speaker, 
Lenthall,  turning  the  scale — and  set  at  liberty.  He  lived 
to  see  the  Restoration,  and  died  in  January  1663,  aged 
about  eighty.  His  eldest  son  had  died  in  Madrid  six  years 
before,  in  a  very  destitute  condition.  He  appears  to  have 
taken  service  in  the  Spanish  army,  and  was  certainly 
present  at  the  Siege  of  Barcelona  in  1652.  Two  letters 
written  by  him  in  May  of  that  year,  "  from  the  army 
before  Barcelona,"  to  his  father  and  his  brother,  Colonel 
Charles  Goring,  describe  his  necessities  and  infirmities, 
and  are  of  considerable  local  interest  from  their  references 
to  the  estates  of  Danny  and  Hurstpierpoint.2  It  appears 
that  they  were  managed  by  two  trustees,  Tom  Hippesley 
and  Timothy  Butts,  who  managed  to  keep  them  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  sequestrators,  but  paid  none  of  the  proceeds 
to  the  Gorings.  Perhaps  these  were  inconsiderable,  as  the 
properties  had  been  mortgaged  for  large  sums  to  meet 

1  Danny  MSS. 

2  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  vol.  i,  p.  597.   They  are  also  printed 
in  S.  A.  C.,  xix,  98-100. 


250     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  extravagant  expenses  of  George  Goring,  and  his  father's 
contributions  to  the  King's  chest. 

The  second  son,  Charles  Goring,  succeeded  his  father 
as  Earl  of  Norwich,  but  on  his  death,  without  issue,  the 
title  became  extinct. 


CHAPTER  XV 

WORCESTER  AND  BRIGHTHELMSTONE 

ON  ist  January  1651,  the  younger  Charles  was  crowned 
King  at  Scone  with  such  splendour  as  the  trouble  of 
the  times  admitted.  On  his  arrival  at  Speymouth  in  the 
previous  June  he  had  been  compelled  to  swear  to  the 
Covenants,  and  he  repeated  the  oath  at  his  coronation. 
His  position  was  far  from  pleasant  or  secure,  and  soon 
became  untenable.  An  English  army  was  in  possession  of 
Edinburgh  and  all  the  south  of  Scotland ;  and  in  August 
Cromwell,  having  crossed  the  Firth  of  Forth  with  his  main 
body  of  troops,  marched  on  Perth,  which  surrendered  on 
2nd  August.  As  a  last  desperate  stroke  Charles  resolved 
to  throw  himself  upon  England,  and  trust  to  the  chance 
of  a  general  rising.  Breaking  up  his  camp  at  Stirling,  he 
marched  rapidly  southwards  with  an  army  of  20,000  men. 
He  met  with  little  opposition,  but  with  small  success  in 
the  raising  of  recruits.  He  had  hoped  to  raise  Lancashire, 
but  Lancashire  was  indifferent.  He  reached  Worcester  on 
the  22nd  August.  His  weary  and  dispirited  army  could  go 
no  further,  and  he  decided  to  remain  there  and  to  fortify 
the  city. 

This  invasion  does  not  seem  to  have  caused  any  great 
fear  of  Royalist  risings  in  the  south  of  England,  such  as 
had  occurred  in  1648,  when  Hamilton  led  a  Scottish  army 
into  Lancashire.  But  some  precautionary  measures  were 
taken.  On  28th  August  the  House  ordered  that  the  Sussex 
militia  regiment  was  immediately  to  be  made  up  to  a 

251 


252     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

strength  of  one  thousand  men,  and  to  march  forthwith  to 
Oxford;  Major  Young  to  have  a  commission  as  Major. 
It  is  significant  of  the  calm  which  reigned  in  the  county 
that  two  troops  of  one  hundred  each,  under  Captain  Stapley l 
and  Captain  Broughton,2  were  considered  sufficient  for  the 
protection  of  East  and  West  Sussex  respectively.3 

Meantime  Cromwell  was  following  "  the  Scots  King  " 
rapidly,  and  reached  Warwick  only  two  days  after  Charles 
entered  Worcester.  On  3rd  September  he  attacked  with 
an  army  of  30,000  men,  probably  twice  the  strength  of  the 
Royal  forces.  It  was  a  desperate  fight,  "  as  stiff  a  contest, 
for  four  or  five  hours,  as  ever  I  have  seen,"  wrote  Cromwell 
to  Lenthall.  The  Scots  made  a  fierce  resistance,  and  were 
finally  overwhelmed  in  Worcester  streets.  "  His  Sacred 
Majesty  escaped,  by  royal  oaks  and  other  miraculous 
appliances  well  known  to  mankind:  but  fourteen-thousand 
other  men,  sacred  too  after  a  sort  though  not  majesties, 
did  not  escape." 4 

The  story  of  Charles's  subsequent  adventures  has  often 
been  told.  It  is  indeed  no  wonder  that  so  brave  a  tale  of 
hairbreadth  escapes  and  unswerving  loyalties  should  have 
caught  the  popular  taste.  The  most  romantic  episode  in 
the  romantic  story  of  the  House  of  Stuart,  it  has  been 
embroidered  by  the  fancy  of  novelists,  and  many  a  village 
claims  a  share  in  it  for  its  manor-house  or  inn,  for  which 
history  gives  no  foundation. 

Ostensibly  no  pains  were  spared  by  the  Parliament  to 
effect  his  capture.  A  proclamation  issued  on  loth  Sept- 
ember declared  him  a  malicious  and  dangerous  traitor  to 
the  peace  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  offered  a  reward  of 
one  thousand  pounds  for  his  apprehension.  Yet  he  dis- 
appeared so  completely  that,  until  news  of  his  arrival  in 

1  John  Stapley,  eldest  son  of  Colonel  Anthony  Stapley. 

2  M.P.  for  Lewes  in  Richard  Cromwell's  Parliament,  1659. 

3  Council  of  State  Proceedings,  27th  and  28th  August  1651. 
*  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  iii,  155. 


WORCESTER  AND  BRIGHTHELMSTONE     253 

France  reached  London,  it  was  commonly  believed  that 
in  the  flight  from  Worcester  he  had  been  killed  by  peasants 
ignorant  of  his  rank.  Perhaps  the  Parliament  was  not  sorry 
to  be  quit  of  him.  A  repetition  of  his  father's  trial  and 
execution  would  have  been  troublesome  and  damaging, 
and  it  would  have  resulted  merely  in  setting  his  brother 
James  in  Charles's  place.  "  Why  should  they  kill  Charles 
to  make  James  King  ? "  as  Charles  himself  said  at  a  later 
day. 

The  Stuarts  seem  to  have  had  a  special  talent  for  wander- 
ing in  disguise.  Charles  I  rode  out  of  Oxford  and  through 
several  English  counties  disguised  as  John  Ashburnham's 
servant;  Charles  II  made  so  good  a  Will  Jackson,  that  an 
inn-keeper  who  had  delivered  himself  rather  freely  on  the 
subject  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  mistrusted  him  as  a  Roundhead 
knave;  and  in  the  following  century  the  young  Pretender 
worthily  carried  on  the  family  tradition.  It  is  only  neces- 
sary here  to  deal  with  that  portion  of  Charles's  journey  in 
which  Sussex  is  concerned.  The  following  account  is  based 
on  the  narrative  of  Colonel  Counter  of  Racton,  which  was 
written  before  the  Restoration,  and  is  probably  more 
trustworthy  than  the  histories  compiled  later,  some  of 
which  bear  traces  of  a  desire  to  enhance  the  deserts  of 
certain  of  the  actors.  The  original  manuscript  is  in  the 
British  Museum,  having  been  discovered  in  a  secret  drawer 
in  an  old  bureau,  when  the  ancient  seat  of  the  Counters  at 
Racton  was  dismantled  about  1830.  It  has  been  several 
times  printed.  It  is  entitled  "  The  last  Act  in  the  Miraculous 
Storie  of  His  Mties  Escape,  being  a  true  and  perfect  relation 
of  his  Conveyance,  through  many  dangers  to  a  safe  harbour 
out  of  the  reach  of  his  tyranicall  enemies.  By  Colonel 
Counter,  of  Rackton,  in  Sussex,  who  had  the  happiness  to 
be  instrumental  in  the  business  (as  it  was  taken  from  his 
mouth  by  a  person  of  worth,  a  little  before  his  death)." 1 

1  Colonel  Counter's  name  does  not  appear  in  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography,  where  it  would  certainly  seem  to  deserve  a  place. 


254     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Colonel  George  Counter,  and  his  cousin  Thomas,  had 
served  the  King  in  the  Civil  War,  and  had  been  taken 
prisoners  at  the  fall  of  Chichester.1  In  September  1651, 
the  Colonel  was  summoned  to  appear  before  the  Com- 
missioners sitting  at  Haberdashers'  Hall,  London,  and  to 
pay  a  fine  of  £200,  or  in  default  to  suffer  sequestration  of 
his  estate.  He  went  accordingly  and  got  off  .£100  of  the 
fine;2  but  his  credit  being  much  shaken  he  could  not 
borrow  the  remaining  £100  in  all  London,  and  was  obliged 
to  repair  with  all  speed  to  the  country,  and  to  obtain  the 
money  from  "  his  usurer,"  to  whom  his  whole  estate  was 
mortgaged.  Having  settled  this  business  he  returned  home 
on  the  night  of  /th  October.  His  lady  met  him  at  the 
door,  and  told  him  that  a  Devonshire  gentleman  was 
waiting  to  see  him,  whom,  on  entering,  he  recognized  as 
Lord  Wilmot.  Wilmot  was  only  slightly  disguised,  but 
sufficiently  to  prevent  Thomas  Counter  from  knowing  him, 
although  he  had  seen  service  under  his  command.  Colonel 
Counter  having  requested  his  wife  and  his  cousin  to  retire, 
Wilmot  broke  his  business  to  him.  He  related  how  Charles, 
after  the  fight  at  Worcester,  had  fled  northwards  into 
Shropshire,  and  thence  to  Bristol  in  the  hope  of  finding  a 
ship  to  take  him  to  the  Continent.  Having  failed  in  this 
attempt,  and  also  at  the  Dorsetshire  ports,  he  was  now 
lying  at  Heale  House,  near  Amesbury.  Dr.  Henchman 3 
had  recommended  that  one  of  the  Sussex  ports  should  be 
tried,  and  that  the  assistance  of  Colonel  Counter,  of  whose 
fidelity  he  was  very  confident,  should  be  obtained  for  this 
purpose.  "  Can  you  help  us  to  a  boat?  "  said  Wilmot.  The 
Colonel  replied  that  for  all  he  lived  so  near  the  sea,  there 
was  no  man  living  so  little  acquainted  with  sea-faring 

1  See  p.  56. 

2  Colonel   Counter's  narrative   is  here  confirmed   by   the   official 
records.   The  actual  amount  he  was  ordered  to  pay  was  ^127.    Cal. 
Com.  for  Advance  of  Money,  2Qth  August  1651. 

3  Afterwards  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  1660-3,  and  °f  London,  1663-75. 


WORCESTER  AND  BRIGHTHELMSTONE     255 

men,  but  that  he  would  do  his  utmost  to  acquit  himself  of 
his  duty.  With  this  answer  Wilmot  was  abundantly  satisfied, 
and  they  parted  for  the  night. 

On  reaching  his  chamber  Gounter  found  that  his  wife 
had  stayed  up  for  him,  and  was  very  insistent  to  know  who 
the  stranger  was,  and  what  his  business.  He  replied  that 
it  was  nothing  concerning  her ;  but  she  declared  that  she 
knew  there  was  enough  in  it  to  ruin  him  and  all  his  family, 
and  burst  into  a  "  great  passion  of  weeping."  He  therefore 
went  to  Lord  Wilmot,  who  desired  him  to  inform  her  of  the 
matter.  Returning  to  his  chamber  he  wiped  the  tears  from 
his  lady's  eyes  and  unfolded  the  business;  whereupon  she 
smiled  and  said :  "  Go  on  and  prosper,  but  I  fear  you  will 
hardly  do  it." 

Next  day  an  attempt  was  made  to  find  a  boat  at  Ems- 
worth  and  at  other  places  on  the  coast,  but  with  no  success. 
Captain  Thomas  Gounter  had  been  taken  into  his  cousin's 
confidence,  and  he  also  tried  to  obtain  a  boat,  but  in  vain. 
Then  the  Colonel  bethought  him  of  a  merchant  in  Chi- 
chester,  one  Mr.  Francis  Mansel,  that  traded  with  France, 
whom  he  knew  by  sight.  Him  he  called  upon  and  asked 
him  if  he  could  freight  a  bark,  "  for,"  he  said,  "  I  have  two 
special  friends  of  mine  who  have  been  engaged  in  a  duel> 
and  there  is  mischief  done,  and  I  am  obliged  to  get  them 
off  if  I  can." 

Mr.  Mansel  was  confident  that  he  could  do  so  at  Bright- 
helmstone,  and  the  Colonel  promised  him  fifty  pounds  for 
his  pains  if  he  could  effect  the  business,  and  pressed  him 
to  ride  thither  with  him  immediately.  But  it  being  Stowe 
fair  day,  and  his  partner  absent,  Mr.  Mansel  could  not  go 
until  the  next  day,  which  was  agreed  upon.  Meantime  Lord 
Wilmot  had  returned  to  Mr.  Laurence  Hyde's  house  at 
Hinton  Daubeny,  and  Colonel  Gounter,  according  to 
promise,  repaired  thither  to  tell  him  all  that  was  done,  of 
which  his  lordship  greatly  approved.  He  rode  home  in  the 
night,  and  next  morning  started  from  Chichester  with 


256     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Mr.  Mansel  for  Brighthelmstone.  They  arrived  there  about 
two  o'clock  to  find  that  the  shipmaster  they  expected  to 
meet  had  left,  but  providentially  he  had  touched  at  Shore- 
ham,  where  they  found  him.  He  was  a  native  of  Bright- 
helmstone, by  name  Nicholas  Tettersall.  To  him  Mansel 
told  the  same  story  as  Wilmot  had  told  him,  and  next  day 
they  came  to  an  agreement  that  Tettersall  was  to  carry  the 
passengers  over  to  the  French  coast,  and  to  be  paid  sixty 
pounds  before  he  took  them  on  board.  He  was  to  be  in 
readiness  to  sail  at  an  hour's  warning,  and  the  merchant 
was  to  remain  on  the  spot,  under  pretence  of  freighting  the 
bark,  in  order  to  see  everything  ready  against  the  return  of 
the  Colonel  with  his  two  friends. 

Colonel  Counter  then  rode  back  with  all  speed  to 
Mr.  Hyde's,  where  he  found  Captain  Robert  Phelips  of 
Montacute,  in  Somerset,  a  devoted  adherent  of  the  royal 
cause,  who,  on  hearing  his  story,  exclaimed :  "  Thou  shalt 
be  a  saint  in  my  almanack  for  ever."  Lord  Wilmot  being 
also  informed  how  things  stood,  they  consulted  who  should 
go  to  the  King;  and  it  was  decided  that  Colonel  Phelips 
should  go,  as  Colonel  Counter  was  greatly  in  need  of  rest. 

On  Monday,  I3th  October,  Wilmot  and  the  two  Counters 
went  out  on  the  downs  with  a  brace  of  greyhounds  as  if  to 
have  a  course  at  a  hare,  and  presently  met  Colonel  Phelips 
conducting  the  King.  It  was  decided  to  lodge  that  night 
at  the  house  of  Counter's  sister,  the  wife  of  Thomas  Symons, 
in  the  village  of  Hambledon,  who  received  the  party  cor- 
dially, and  set  wine,  ale,  and  biscuits  before  them.  Pre- 
sently her  husband  came  home,  "  a  loyal  hearty  gentleman, 
but  too  great  a  lover  of  the  bottle."  And  it  plainly  appeared 
that  he  had  "  been  in  company."  He  was  inclined  to  be 
annoyed  at  finding  so  many  visitors  in  his  house.  "  This  is 
brave,"  he  said ;  "  a  man  can  no  sooner  be  out  of  the  way 
than  his  house  must  be  taken  up  with  I  know  not  whom." 
But  seeing  his  brother-in-law  he  made  them  all  welcome. 
Then  noticing  the  close-cropped  head  and  plain  attire  of 


CHARLES  II  AT  THE  AGE  OF  NINETEEN. 


WORCESTER  AND  BRIGHTHELMSTONE     257 

Charles,  who  passed  under  the  name  of  Will  Jackson,  he 
said:  "Here  is  a  Roundhead;  I  never  knew  you  to  keep 
Roundheads'  company  before."  But  the  Colonel,  answering 
for  him  as  his  friend,  he  took  him  by  the  shoulder  and 
drank  a  glass  of  strong  ale  with  him,  and  called  him 
"  brother  Roundhead,"  a  character  which  Charles  kept  up 
by  gravely  reproving  him  for  a  profane  oath. 

Next  morning  Charles  bade  farewell  to  Colonel  Phelips 
and  to  Thomas  Counter,  with  thanks  for  their  fidelity  and 
service,  and  continued  his  journey  to  Brighthelmstone  with 
Lord  Wilmot  and  his  servant  and  Colonel  Counter.  The 
first  part  of  his  ride  through  Sussex,  and  the  aspect  of  the 
country  at  the  time,  is  admirably  described  by  Harrison 
Ainsworth  in  Ovingdean  Grange. 

"  After  quitting  the  forest  and  skirting  Stanstead  Park, 
the  Royal  party  pursued  their  way  through  a  lovely  and 
well-wooded  district,  until  they  came  to  the  foot  of  an 
eminence  called  Bow  Hill,  and  entered  the  narrow  and 
picturesque  vale  denominated  Kingly  Bottom — so  called 
from  a  battle  between  the  inhabitants  of  Chichester  and 
the  Danes — and  Charles  failed  not  to  notice  the  group  of 
venerable  yew-trees — venerable  in  his  days,  though  still 
extant,  with  the  trifle  of  two  centuries  added  to  their  age — 
that  adorn  the  valley.  After  this,  they  passed  Stoke  Down, 
bestowing  a  passing  observation  on  the  curious  circular 
hollows  indented  in  the  sod. 

"  From  the  acclivities  over  which  the  travellers  next  rode, 
the  ancient  and  picturesque  city  of  Chichester  could  be 
seen  on  the  level  land  near  the  sea,  the  tall  spire  and  pin- 
nacles of  its  noble  cathedral,  the  adjacent  bell-tower,  and 
the  quaint  old  octagonal  market-cross,  erected  in  the  fif- 
teenth century,  all  rising  above  the  crumbling  walls  still 
surrounding  the  city.  As  Charles  looked  towards  this  fine 
old  cathedral,  he  could  not  help  deploring  to  his  com- 
panions the  damage  it  had  sustained  at  the  hands  of  the 
sacrilegious  Republican  soldiers. 

s 


258     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

"  Avoiding  Chichester,  the  king  and  his  company  pursued 
their  way  along  the  beautiful  and  well-wooded  slopes  of  the 
Goodwood  downs.  If  the  journey  had  been  unattended 
with  risk,  it  would  have  been  delightful;  but,  beset  by 
peril  as  he  was  on  all  sides,  Charles  did  not  lose  his  sense 
of  enjoyment  The  constant  presence  of  danger  had  made 
him  well-nigh  indifferent  to  it.  Constitutionally  brave, 
almost  reckless,  he  was  assailed  by  no  idle  apprehensions. 
The  chief  maxim  in  his  philosophy  was  to  make  the  most 
of  the  passing  moment,  and  not  to  let  the  chances  of  future 
misfortune  damp  present  enjoyment. 

"The  fineness  of  the  weather  contributed  materially  to  the 
pleasure  of  the  ride.  It  was  an  exquisite  morning,  and  the 
day  promised  to  continue  equally  beautiful  throughout. 
The  trees  were  clothed  with  the  glowing  livery  of  later 
autumn,  and,  as  the  whole  district  was  well  and  variously 
wooded,  there  was  every  variety  of  shade  in  the  foliage 
still  left,  from  bright  yellow  to  deepest  red.  Corn  was  then, 
as  now,  extensively  grown  in  the  broad  and  fertile  fields  in 
the  flat  land  nearer  the  sea,  but  the  crops  had  been  gathered, 
and  the  fields  were,  for  the  most  part,  covered  with  stubble. 
The  prospect  offered  to  the  king,  as  he  looked  towards  the 
coast,  was  varied  and  extensive.  On  the  left,  the  ancient 
mansion  of  Halnaker,  now  in  ruins,  but  at  that  time  pre- 
senting a  goodly  specimen  of  the  Tudor  era  of  architecture, 
seemed  to  invite  him  to  halt;  and  Colonel  Gunter  informed 
his  majesty  that  over  the  buttery  hatch  in  this  old  house 
were  scrolls  hospitably  entreating  visitors  to  '  come  in  and 
drink,'  assuring  them  they  would  be  '  les  bien-venus.'  Not- 
withstanding these  inducements  to  tarry,  Charles  rode  on, 
galloping  along  the  fine  avenue  of  chestnut-trees,  the  fallen 
leaves  of  which  now  thickly  strewed  the  ground. 

"  Halnaker  was  soon  left  behind,  and  ere  long  the  some- 
what devious  course  of  the  royal  party  led  them  through 
the  exquisite  grove  of  birch-trees  skirting  Slindon  Park, 
the  remarkable  beauty  of  the  timber  eliciting  the  warm 


WORCESTER  AND  BRIGHTHELMSTONE     259 

admiration  of  the  king,  who  would  fain  have  loitered  to 
admire  it  at  his  leisure. 

"  The  proud-looking  castle  of  Arundel  was  now  visible, 
magnificently  situated  on  the  terrace  of  a  hill,  surrounded 
by  noble  woods,  above  which  towered  the  ancient  central 
keep.  From  the  spot  where  the  royal  party  surveyed  it, 
about  two  miles  off,  the  stately  edifice  looked  the  picture 
of  feudal  grandeur,  but  a  nearer  approach  showed  how 
grievously  it  had  been  injured.  Though  the  interior  of  the 
ancient  and  stately  fabric  was  mutilated  and  destroyed, 
though  the  carved  tombs  and  monuments,  stone  pulpit, 
arches,  altars,  delicate  tracery,  and  exquisite  architectural 
ornaments  of  the  church  were  defaced,  though  much  of  the 
fine  timber  growing  near  the  fortress  was  remorselessly 
hewn  down,  the  defences  of  the  castle  were  still  maintained, 
and  it  was  even  then  looked  upon  as  a  place  of  considerable 
strength." 

As  the  travellers  approached  Arundel  they  met  the 
governor  of  the  castle,  Captain  Morley,  going  out  to  hunt. 
The  better  to  avoid  him  they  dismounted,  and  so  escaped 
notice.  Charles  being  told  who  it  was,  replied  merrily:  "  I 
did  not  much  like  his  starched  mouchates." 

This  incident  appears  to  have  caused  the  travellers  to 
change  their  route;  instead  of  crossing  the  Arun  at 
Arundel,  they  seem  to  have  ridden  northwards,  and  crossed 
at  Houghton  Bridge.  In  the  village  they  stopped  at  an  inn 
for  some  bread  and  drink  without  dismounting.  A  ride  of 
eleven  miles  brought  them  to  Bramber,  and  as  they  entered 
the  town  they  came  suddenly  on  a  party  of  soldiers.  Lord 
Wilmot  was  for  turning  back,  but  Colonel  Gounter  said :  "  If 
we  do  we  are  undone.  Let  us  go  boldly  on  and  we  shall 
not  be  suspected  " ;  and  the  King  agreed  with  him.  And  so 
it  turned  out. 

Gounter  wished  the  King  to  make  a  halt  at  Beeding, 
where  he  had  provided  refreshment  at  the  house  of  one 
Mr.  Backshall;  but  Wilmot  opposed  this  course  in  view  of 


260     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  neighbourhood  of  the  soldiers.  Colonel  Counter's  nar- 
rative seems  to  suggest  a  slight  disagreement  on  this 
point,  with  the  result  that  Wilmot  "  carried  the  King  out  of 
the  road  I  knew  not  whither,  so  we  parted — they  where 
they  thought  safest,  I  to  Brighthelmstone."  1 

Wilmot  and  Charles  probably  rode  direct  over  the  downs. 
At  any  rate  the  party  met  again  at  the  "George"  Inn,  at 
Brighthelmstone,  where  they  found  Mr.  Mansel  and  Nicholas 
Tettersall.  After  supper  the  landlord,  one  Smith  by  name, 
went  up  to  Charles,  and  taking  his  hand  kissed  it,  saying: 
"It  shall  not  be  said  but  I  have  kissed  the  best  man's 
hand  in  England."  The  King  merely  laughed,  and  went 
into  the  next  room, "  not  desiring,"  as  he  said  himself, "  any 
further  discourse  with  him,  there  being  no  remedy  against 
my  being  known  by  him,  and  more  discourse  might  have 
but  raised  suspicion."  Smith  is  said  to  have  been  previously 
one  of  Charles  I's  guards.2 

After  some  difficulty  with  Tettersall,  who  at  the  last 
minute  declined  to  start  unless  his  bark  was  insured  by 
Counter  at  a  valuation  of  ^200,  they  took  horse  about  two 
hours  after  midnight,  and  rode  to  the  creek,  probably  at 
Southwick,  to  which  for  greater  safety  the  vessel  of 
thirty-four  tons  burden  had  been  brought,  Shoreham  being 
at  that  time  an  important  and  busy  place.3  The  King  and 

1  There  is  no  reason  whatever  to  suppose  that  Charles  broke  his 
journey  between  Hambledon  and  Brighton,  at  Amberley  or  Houghton, 
as  suggested  in  an  article  entitled  Route  of  Charles  II  through  Sussex 
in  S.  A.  C.,  xviii.   The  writer  is  very  inaccurate ;  he  confuses  Captain 
Morley,  governor  of  Arundel,  with  Colonel  Herbert  Morley,  and  even 
with  Sir  William  Waller;  and  he  exaggerates  the  distance.   Colonel 
Counter's  narrative  is  a  much  safer  guide. 

2  There  is  considerable  diversity  of  detail  in  the  accounts  of  what 
passed  on  this  night  at  Brighthelmstone.   The  whole  matter  is  treated 
exhaustively  in  Mr.  F.  E.  Sawyer's  Captain  Nicholas  Tettersall  and 
the  escape  of  Charles  the  Second,  S.  A.  C.,  xxxii,  81  seq. 

3  There  is  some  doubt  as  to  the  actual  place  of  embarkation.    We 
know  from  Counter's  narrative  that  the  vessel,  when  chartered,  was 
lying  at  Shoreham.    Clarendon  and  other  writers  not  acquainted  with 


WORCESTER  AND  BRIGHTHELMSTONE     261 

Lord  Wilmot,  having  said  farewell  to  Colonel  Counter, 
climbed  on  board,  and  lay  down  in  the  little  cabin  till  the 
tide  came.  At  eight  in  the  morning  they  set  sail.  Counter 
remained  on  the  beach  with  the  horses  ready,  in  case  any- 
thing untoward  should  happen,  till  the  afternoon,  when 
they  passed  out  of  sight.  Next  morning  Charles  landed 
safely  at  Fecamp  in  Normandy.  No  sooner  was  he  on 
shore  than  a  violent  storm  came  on,  so  that  Tettersall 
was  forced  to  cut  his  cable,  and  lost  his  anchor  to  save 
his  boat,  for  which  he  required  of  Counter  eight  pounds, 
"  and  had  it." 

Nicholas  Tettersall  seems  to  have  been  by  no  means 
lacking  in  astuteness.  At  the  Restoration  he  took  his  vessel 
into  the  Thames  and  moored  her  opposite  Whitehall,  no 
doubt  as  a  gentle  reminder  of  his  claims.  Soon  after  she 
was  entered  as  a  fifth-rate  in  the  navy,  when  her  name  was 
changed  from  the  Surprise  to  the  Royal  Escape,  and  she 
appears  in  the  Navy  List  of  1684  as  a  smack  of  thirty-four 
tons,  ten  men,  no  guns.1  Tettersall  himself  was  made  a 
Captain  in  the  Navy,  and  received  a  pension  of  £100  a 
year.  Colonel  Counter,  who  had  been  chiefly  instrumental 
in  arranging  the  escape,  died  before  the  Restoration,  leav- 
ing his  estate  encumbered  with  a  debt  of  ^"3,000,  chiefly 
expended  in  the  King's  service.  It  does  not  appear  that 
anything  was  done  to  relieve  his  family  of  this  burden,  but 
his  widow  obtained  a  pension  of  £200  a  year  for  twenty-one 
years,  and  there  is  extant  a  letter  of  Charles  II,  dated 
4th  May  1664,  recommending  his  son,  George  Counter, 

the  locality  speak  of  Brighthelmstone  as  the  place  whence  Charles  set 
sail,  but  the  King  himself,  in  his  account  dictated  to  Samuel  Pepys, 
definitely  states  that  he  and  his  companions  "  went  toward  Shoreham, 
taking  the  master  of  the  ship  with  us  on  horseback  behind  one  of  our 
company."  Finding  the  vessel  lying  dry,  it  being  low  water,  he  and 
Lord  Wilmot  "got  up  with  a  ladder  into  her."  When  it  was  high 
water  "they  went  out  of  the  port."  This  seems  to  render  untenable 
the  opinion  that  they  embarked  from  Brighton  beach. 
1  S.  A.  C.,  xxxii,  90. 


262     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

then  a  boy  at  Winchester,  for  a  scholarship  at  New 
College.1 

Mr.  Francis  Mansel,  the  merchant  of  Chichester,  was 
granted  a  pension  of  £200  a  year.  But  it  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  regularly  paid,  and  as  he  was  taxed  on  the 
strength  of  it,  may  have  been  rather  a  burden  than  a 
blessing.  Samuel  Pepys  met  him  in  1667.  "  And  so  away 
with  the  'chequer  men  to  the  Leg  in  King  Street,  and  there 
had  wine  for  them:  and  here  was  one  in  company  with 
them,  that  was  the  man  that  got  the  vessel  to  carry  over 
the  King  from  Bredhemson,  who  hath  a  pension  of  £200 
per  annum,  but  ill  paid,  and  the  man  is  looking  after  getting 
of  a  prize-ship  to  live  by ;  but  the  trouble  is  that  the  poor 
man  who  hath  received  no  part  of  his  money  these  four 
years  and  is  ready  to  starve  almost,  must  yet  pay  to  the 
Poll  Bill  for  this  pension.  He  told  me  several  particulars 
of  the  King's  coming  thither,  which  was  mighty  pleasant, 
and  shews  how  mean  a  thing  a  king  is,  how  subject  to  fall, 
and  how  like  other  men  he  is  in  his  afflictions."  * 

The  legend  that  Charles  visited  Ovingdean  Grange,  of 
which  Harrison  Ainsworth  made  use,  has  no  foundation  in 
fact,  but  is  of  respectable  antiquity.  "When  the  Geers 
lived  at  Ovingdean  Farm,  Charles  the  Second  lay  con- 
cealed here,  till  he  had  an  opportunity  of  embarking  at 
Brighton  for  France.  His  person  had  such  an  effect  on  the 
good  woman  of  the  house  that  her  next  child  (a  very  fine 
boy)  was  said  to  be  the  picture  of  the  King." 3 

It  was  fortunate  for  Counter  and  others  who  had  assisted 
Charles  in  his  escape  that  until  the  Restoration  he  gave  no 
true  account  of  his  adventures.  He  is  even  said  to  have 
amused  himself  by  concocting  a  fictitious  story.  He  asserted 
that  he  owed  his  safety  after  Worcester  not  to  the  Penderels 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxxii,  103.  -  Pepys'  Diary,  ed.  Wheatley,  vi,  188. 

3  Rev.  Mr.  Morgan's  letter  to  Sir  William  Burrell,  dated  March 
1780.  Burrell  MSS.  in  British  Museum,  No.  5684,  p.  93.  S.  A.  C.,  xiii, 
307- 


WORCESTER  AND  BRIGHTHELMSTONE     263 

and  Jane  Lane,  but  to  a  soldier  who  had  formerly  been  a 
highwayman  and  knew  every  by-path  in  the  neighbourhood. 
He  further  declared  that  after  his  concealment  in  the  oak 
he  had  made  his  way  to  London,  where  he  disguised  him- 
self as  a  washerwoman,  and  passed  through  the  streets 
carrying  a  basket  of  linen  on  his  head.1 

1  Gardiner,  Commonwealth,  ch.  xvii. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR 

THE  advantage  which  accrued  to  the  Parliamentary 
cause  from  the  adhesion  of  the  navy  has  not  always 
been  duly  estimated.  The  influence  of  sea-power  on  history 
is  somewhat  of  a  modern  discovery.  In  the  case  of  the 
Civil  War  its  effects  were  more  negative  than  positive;  it 
must  be  judged  rather  by  what  it  prevented  than  by  what 
it  achieved.  When  war  was  imminent  the  Parliament 
appointed  the  Earl  of  Warwick  as  Vice-Admiral  to  the 
Earl  of  Northumberland,  Lord  High  Admiral,  a  somewhat 
lukewarm  supporter  of  the  popular  party,  who  readily 
acquiesced.  There  was  some  demur  on  the  part  of  a  few 
captains,  but  Warwick  carried  the  fleet  with  him.  Perhaps 
an  incautious  remark  of  Charles  about  "  water-rats  "  helped 
to  bring  about  this  result.  Even  in  great  crises  petty 
personal  feelings  sometimes  have  an  undue  influence. 

The  Prince  of  Orange  at  any  rate  understood  what  the 
command  of  the  sea  and  the  possession  of  London  meant 
to  the  Parliament ;  he  told  Dr.  Stephen  Goffe  *  that  if  the 
King  could  preserve  himself  until  he  could  by  sea  do 
something  upon  the  rebels  and  their  London  trade,  they 
would  be  instantly  ruined.2 

Throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  war  the  Parliament 
was  able,  through  its  possession  of  the  fleet,  to  keep  open 
the  trade  of  London  and  other  ports  of  the  kingdom,  and 
to  render  difficult  Royalist  communications  with  foreign 

1  See  ch.  viii.  2  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dvii,  37. 

264 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR    265 

countries.  The  continual  failure  of  the  attempts  to  bring 
over  foreign  contingents  was  partly  due  to  the  existence  of 
a  strong  Parliamentary  fleet.  Such  incidents  as  the  whole- 
sale drowning  of  Irish  troops  captured  by  Captain  Swanley 
off  the  coast  of  Pembroke  made  projects  of  invasion  appear 
hazardous. 

And  the  Parliament  was  also  able  to  communicate  with, 
and  send  supplies  to,  its  Generals  in  remote  parts  of  the 
kingdom  when  intervening  counties  were  held  by  the 
Royalists.  In  July  1644  Essex  was  in  Devonshire  and 
wanted  pay  for  his  troops.  The  committee  of  both  king- 
doms sent  £20,000  through  Surrey  and  Sussex  to  Arundel, 
Chichester,  and  Portsmouth,  whence  it  was  shipped  to  the 
west.  It  was  convoyed  by  a  troop  of  Kentish  horse,  assisted 
by  Colonels  Morley  and  Stapley.1 

During  the  "Presbyterian-Royalist"  outbreak  of  1648 
several  ships  revolted  and  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  Royalist 
fleet  under  the  Prince  of  Wales.  But  beyond  a  temporary 
occupation  of  the  three  castles  in  the  Downs — Deal, 
Walmer,  and  Sandown — under  cover  of  their  guns,  little 
was  achieved. 

To  the  Sussex  coast  towns  the  Parliamentary  command 
of  the  sea  was  of  great  importance.  The  trade  of  Rye  with 
the  continent  has  already  been  mentioned.2  A  description 
of  the  harbour,  dated  1652,  states  "there  may  lye  afloat  at 
lowe  water  15  or  20  sayle  of  shippes,  which  draw  3  and  3^ 
fathome  water  and  have  more  water  than  they  draw  by 
4  or  6  foot ;  and  at  the  same  tyme  further  up  in  the  Channel! 
may  ride  afloat  at  lowe  water  50  or  60  sayle  of  ships  which 
draw  12  or  13  foot  water,  all  without  prejudice  one  to  the 
other.  There  is  a  very  good  conveniency  for  ships  to  cleane 
and  tallow,  careeninge  afloat  or  groundinge  adry  which  they 
please." 3 

In  spite  of  occasional  trouble  from  the  Royalist  privateers, 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  I,  dii,  40.  -  See  ante,  p.  13. 

3  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  219. 


266     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

a  fairly  regular  service  of  packets  was  maintained  through- 
out the  war  and  under  the  Commonwealth  between  Rye  and 
Dieppe.  "  We  humbly  certify  that  during  the  time  of  the 
late  differences  in  this  nation,  there  hath  always  been  a 
fair  correspondence  between  this  town  and  Dieppe  in 
France,  the  Governour  thereof  behaving  himself  very  civilly 
and  courteously  towards  the  friends  of  this  State  and  deny- 
ing entertainment  to  pirates." l  An  example  of  the  pleasant 
relations  of  the  authorities  of  Rye  and  Dieppe  occurred  in 
1557.  The  Mayor  wrote  to  the  Governor:  "  I  am  informed 
that  a  barque,  whereof  one  George  Broadbridge  was  master, 
being  surprised  by  the  enemy  was  by  some  Frenchmen  of 
your  town  together  with  the  help  of  the  barque's  men  re- 
gained and  brought  into  Dieppe,  and  for  their  salvage  they 
intend  to  make  her  their  prize.  The  enemy  have  taken  the 
master  prisoner,  and  intend  to  set  a  ransom  on  him.  Where- 
fore on  the  poor  man's  behalf  I  desire  your  favour  that 
what  may  be  reasonable  for  your  men's  salvage  of  the 
barque  may  be  allowed  and  the  barque  restored." 2 

Among  notable  visitors  to  Rye  was  John  Evelyn,  the 
diarist.  After  a  long  absence  abroad,  he  had  returned  to 
London  in  February  1652,  in  time  to  see  "the  magnificent 
funeral  of  that  arch-rebel  Ireton,  carried  in  pomp  from 
Somerset  House  to  Westminster."  Having  decided  to 
bring  his  wife  over  from  Paris,  he  went  to  "  Colonel  Morley, 
one  of  their  Council  of  State,  as  then  called,  who  had  been 
my  school-fellow,3  to  request  a  pass  for  my  wife's  safe 
landing,  and  the  goods  she  was  to  bring  with  her  out  of 
France,  which  he  courteously  granted,  and  did  me  many 
other  kindnesses,  that  was  a  great  matter  in  those  days." 4 
Having  received  a  letter  from  Colonel  Morley  to  the  magis- 
trates and  searchers  at  Rye,  to  assist  the  lady  at  her 
landing  and  show  her  all  civility,  Evelyn  set  out  on  the 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  218.   June  3,  1652. 

2  ibid.)  p.  229.  3  At  Lewes  Grammar  School. 
4  Evelyn's  Diary,  3oth  May 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR   267 

4th  of  June  to  meet  her  at  the  port,  "  where  was  an  embargo 
on  occasion  of  the  late  conflict  with  the  Holland  fleet,  the 
two  nations  being  now  in  war,  and  which  made  sailing  very 
unsafe."  He  was  kept  waiting  several  days,  the  Channel 
passage  being  at  the  time  a  very  uncertain  affair.  "  On 
Whitsunday  I  went  to  the  church  (which  is  a  very  fair  one) 
and  heard  one  of  the  canters,  who  dismissed  the  assembly 
very  rudely  and  without  any  blessing.  Here  I  stayed  till 
the  loth  with  no  small  impatience,  when  I  walked  over  to 
survey  the  ruins  of  Winchelsea,  that  ancient  cinque-port, 
which  by  the  remains  and  ruins  of  ancient  streets  and 
public  structures  discovers  it  to  have  been  formerly  a  con- 
siderable and  large  city.  There  are  to  be  seen  vast  caves 
and  vaults,  walls  and  towers,  ruins  of  monasteries  and  of  a 
sumptuous  church,  in  which  are  some  handsome  monu- 
ments, especially  of  the  Templars,  buried  just  in  the 
manner  of  those  in  the  Temple  at  London.  This  place 
being  now  all  in  rubbish,  and  a  few  despicable  hovels  and 
cottages  only  standing,  hath  yet  a  mayor.1  The  sea,  which 
formerly  rendered  it  a  rich  and  commodious  port,  has  now 
forsaken  it.  On  the  nth,  about  four  in  the  afternoon  being 
at  bowls  on  the  green,  we  discovered  a  vessel,  which  proved 
to  be  that  in  which  my  wife  was,  and  which  got  into  the 
harbour  about  eight  that  evening  to  my  no  small  joy. 
They  had  been  three  days  at  sea,  and  escaped  the  Dutch 
fleet,  through  which  they  had  passed,  taken  for  fishers, 
which  was  great  good  fortune,  there  being  seventeen  bales 
of  furniture  and  other  rich  plunder,  which  I  bless  God 
came  all  safe  to  land,  together  with  my  wife,  and  my  Lady 
Browne  her  mother,  who  accompanied  her.  My  wife  being 
discomposed  by  having  been  so  long  at  sea,  we  set  not 
forth  towards  home  till  the  I4th,  when  hearing  the  small- 
pox was  very  rife  in  and  about  London,  and  Lady  Browne 
having  a  desire  to  drink  Tunbridge  waters,  I  carried  them 

1  Mr.  Evelyn   might   have  added  that   Winchelsea   returned  two 
members  to  Parliament. 


268     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

thither,  and  stayed  in  a  very  sweet  place,  private  and 
refreshing,  and  took  the  waters  myself  till  the  23rd,  when 
I  went  to  prepare  for  their  reception,  leaving  them  for  the 
present  in  their  little  cottage  by  the  wells."  Poor  Lady 
Browne  did  not  derive  much  permanent  benefit  from  the 
Tunbridge  waters,  as  a  month  later  she  was  "  taken  with  a 
scarlet  fever  and  died." 

Not  only  was  the  traffic  of  passengers  to  and  from 
France  an  important  affair,  but  the  commerce  of  Rye  at 
this  time  was  also  very  considerable.  It  was  the  chief  port 
of  shipment  for  the  iron  produced  at  the  Sussex  ironworks. 
A  curious  circumstance  is  the  large  number  of  horses  ex- 
ported to  France  and  Flanders,  so  large  that  it  was  thought 
to  be  harmful  to  the  public  service,  and  prohibited  in  1653, 
except  by  leave  of  the  Council  of  State.  Even  under  this 
limited  authority,  the  number  sent  was  still  great,  the 
warrant  books  being  filled  with  counterfoils  relating  to 
horses  forwarded  from  Rye  for  persons  of  distinction  on 
the  Continent.  In  1656  fifteen  couples  of  hounds,  and  in 
1657  twelve  couples,  were  sent  under  a  pass  to  Dieppe.1 

Continual  applications  were  made  throughout  the  period 
for  protection  from  the  Dunkirk  privateers  in  the  King's 
service,  of  which  Beachey  Head  was  a  favourite  lurking- 
place.2  During  the  war  the  Parliamentary  fleet  was  too 
fully  occupied  to  give  much  attention  to  such  police  work, 
but  with  the  establishment  of  the  Commonwealth  strong 
measures  were  at  once  taken  by  the  Government  to  protect 
the  Sussex  fishermen  and  traders.  On  June  pth  1649, 
Colonel  Edward  Popham  sent  an  order  to  Captain  Wheatley 
of  the  Warspite:  "  Hearing  from  some  members  of  the 
House  serving  for  Sussex  and  from  the  Governor  of  Rye 
that  the  coast  has  been  much  infested  with  pirates  and 
picaroons  since  the  surprisal  of  the  Robert  frigate,  appointed 
for  that  service,  you  are  to  repair  with  your  vessel  to  Rye 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxxix,  4. 

3  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  ii,  17,  63;  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  157. 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR   269 

and  Bredhempson,  and  other  ports  and  creeks  of  Sussex, 
and  acquaint  the  people  that  you  are  ordered  to  attend 
there  and  convoy  vessels  bound  to  London  with  corn,  etc."  l 
Ten  days  later  Captain  Pierce  was  ordered  to  draw  as  near 
the  coast  of  Sussex  as  he  could  so  as  to  meet  the  picaroons 
which  lurked  under  Beachey  and  thereabouts,  annoying 
poor  fishermen  and  others  that  trade  to  and  from  Sussex 
and  London.2  And  in  August  the  Council  of  State  sent 
similar  instructions  to  Captain  Henley  of  the  Minion? 

A  very  special  privilege  was  obtained  in  1652,  the  Rye- 
Dieppe  service  being  exempted  from  the  embargo  laid  on 
all  French  shipping.4 

Great  shot,  guns,  cables,  anchors  and  other  iron  manu- 
factures were  constantly  shipped  from  Rye  to  the  fleet  in 
the  Downs,  the  Tower  of  London,  and  King's  Lynn.  The 
chief  contractor  for  freight  was  William  Key,  shipowner, 
whose  farthing  tokens  are  well  known  to  numismatists. 
They  bear  on  one  side  a  ship  in  full  sail,  on  the  other  the 
initials  W.I.K.  The  legend,  commenced  on  one  side  and 
finished  on  the  other,  is  "  William  Keye  at  the  Sheepe  Inn, 
Rye,  1652." s  He  married  Anne,  sister  of  Samuel  Jeake  the 
elder,8  and  died  in  1666. 

Smuggling,  which  became  so  important  a  Sussex  industry 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  was  not  unknown  in  the  seven- 
teenth. Lewis  Gilliat,  a  French  haberdasher  and  tradesman, 
who  did  a  large  business  in  shipping  horses  and  other  com- 
modities to  France,  and  was  certified  by  the  Mayor  in  1654 
as  a  professor  of  the  Protestant  religion,  a  resident  in  Rye 
for  thirteen  years,  and  a  man  of  good  report,7  was  charged 
in  1650  with  being  concerned  in  smuggling  French  silks." 
"  In  1658  his  son  Claude  was  indicted  and  convicted,  on  the 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  iv,  4.  *  lbtd.y  17. 

3  Ibid.,  63.  *  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  218. 

5  S.  A.  C.,  xxiv,  133;  xxxix,  9.  6  See  ante,  p.  78. 

7  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  224. 

8  S.  A.  C.,  xxxix,  10. 


270     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

prosecution  of  an  informer,  of  having  exercised  the  com- 
bined mysteries  of  a  haberdasher  and  grocer  without  being 
duly  qualified  by  apprenticeship.  His  fellow  townsmen, 
however,  who  probably  had  a  constitutional  and  hereditary 
sympathy  for  the  family  of  a  suspected  smuggler,  were  well 
disposed  towards  him,  and  the  informer  having  recovered 
£i  of  the  fine  imposed,  viz.,  £12,  the  rest  was  remitted."  l 

But  in  the  seventeenth  century,  as  for  centuries  before, 
the  Sussex  maritime  population  was  busy  not  with  "  free 
trade  "  in  imports,  but  with  the  export  smuggling  of  wool. 
The  export  of  wool  was  either  wholly  prohibited  or  only 
permitted  under  licence  on  payment  of  a  heavy  duty.  The 
Sussex  "  owlers "  set  these  provisions  at  defiance,  openly 
brought  down  the  woolpacks  on  horseback  to  the  seashore 
and  loaded  French  vessels  with  them.  In  1656  it  was 
affirmed  that  although  the  exportation  was  prohibited  al- 
most as  a  felony,  there  was  nothing  more  daily  practised.3 
All  classes  were  concerned  in  this  unlawful  trade,  even  the 
magistrates  were  not  ill-disposed  towards  it,  and  legal  pro- 
ceedings against  "these  caterpillars  "  when  detected  com- 
monly failed.  It  was  estimated  that  in  two  years  no  less  than 
forty  thousand  packs  were  shipped  from  the  coasts  of  Kent 
and  Sussex  to  Calais  alone.  It  was  too  much  to  expect 
that  the  landowners  and  their  dependents  in  these  counties 
would  acquiesce  in  provisions  made  in  the  interest  of  the 
clothiers  of  Wilts,  Worcester,  Gloucester,  and  Essex.  Re- 
stricted trade  ever  seeks  an  outlet,  as  water  seeks  a  level. 

The  North  Sea  fishery  was  a  great  source  of  wealth  to 
the  Sussex  seaports,  especially  Hastings,  Rye,  and  Bright- 
helmstone,  but  was  rendered  somewhat  precarious  by  the 
operations  of  the  privateers.  In  August  1644  the  Mayor 
and  Jurats  of  Rye  represented  the  great  distress  their  poor 
fishermen  were  in,  because  they  could  not  go  about  their 
calling  for  fear  of  being  taken  by  the  King's  men-of-war, 

1  S.  A.  C.  xxxix,  10. 

8  The  Golden  Fleece,  by  W.  S.,  Gent.,  1656,  p.  67;  S.  A.  C.,  x,  73. 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR  271 

having  already  that  summer  lost  one  gainfull  voyage  to  the 
North  Sea  to  take  fish,  and  not  daring  to  adventure  to 
Yarmouth  to  take  herring;  these  two  voyages  being  the 
chief  means  of  the  year  for  their  maintenance,  and  if  they 
should  be  deprived  of  both,  it  would  prove  their  utter  un- 
doing, and  they  would  not  be  able  to  subsist  the  next  win- 
ter. Their  necessities,  therefore,  being  so  great,  and  like  to 
be  greater,  they  determined  to  petition  the  honourable  House 
of  Parliament  to  let  them  have  safe  convoys  to  Yarmouth, 
and  to  stay  with  them  all  the  fishing  season.1  The  follow- 
ing year,  while  the  fishing  fleet  was  absent  at  Yarmouth, 
Colonel  Morley  was  informed  that  two  men-of-war  had  been 
lying  for  a  long  time  in  the  bay,  and  that  there  was  great 
fear  that  unless  a  frigate  were  at  once  sent,  the  fishing  boats 
would  be  surprised  and  captured  on  their  return.2  A  similar 
request  was  made  to  the  Commissioners  of  the  Navy  in 
February  1659  for  the  protection  of  boats  engaged  during 
spring  and  summer  in  the  mackerel  fishery.3  The  Bright- 
helmstone  fishermen  also  in  July  1653,  in  the  middle  of  the 
Dutch  war,  petitioned  for  a  convoy  for  fifty  boats  sailing 
for  the  North  Sea,  and  no  doubt  obtained  it* 

Another  fugitive  of  importance  found  his  way  to  France 
through  Sussex.  In  January  1652  Lieut-General  John 
Middleton,  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower,  escaped  thence  in  his 
wife's  clothes.  The  Council  of  State  sent  urgent  letters  to 
all  the  ports,  and  offered  a  reward  of  £200  for  his  apprehen- 
sion ; '  but  in  vain.  In  May  one  Abel  Tabret  *  gave  certain 
information  which  the  Council  referred  to  Colonels  Morley 
and  Stapley  and  Messrs.  Hay,  Baker,  Gratwicke,  and  Bur- 
bridge  directing  them  to  send  for  and  examine  any  of  the 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  215. 

'2  Ibid.  3  Ibid.,  p.  233. 

4  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  157. 

5  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xxiii,  5. 

6  A  Sussex  name;  see  Sussex  Marriage  licences,  Sussex  Record 
Society,  vol.  vi. 


272     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

persons  mentioned  in  the  information  who  should  be  found 
in  Co.  Sussex,  and  who  had  anything  to  do  with  Middle- 
ton's  escape.  Colonel  Morley  was  requested  to  give  special 
care  to  the  business.1  It  does  not  appear  that  anything  im- 
portant resulted. 

The  Dutch  war  of  1652  was  the  inevitable  outcome  of 
the  increasing  commercial  rivalry  of  England  and  Holland, 
especially  in  the  East  Indian  trade.  The  high-handed  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Dutch  in  the  Spice  Islands,  and  the  mas- 
sacre of  Amboyna  in  1623,  had  occasioned  many  fruitless 
demands  for  redress  from  James  and  Charles,  but  neither 
was  willing  to  push  his  claims  to  the  point  of  war.  The  new 
ruler  of  England  was  of  different  stuff.  Sincerely  anxious 
to  avoid  a  war  between  the  two  Protestant  republics, 
Cromwell  yet  knew  that  the  time  had  come  for  England  to 
make  a  bold  bid  for  the  trade  of  the  world,  and  especially 
for  the  carrying  of  it.  If  we  put  Germany  for  England,  and 
Great  Britain  for  Holland,  the  conditions  of  the  last  quarter 
of  a  century  have  not  been  very  unlike  those  which  pre- 
vailed in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth. 

Far  and  near  the  operations  of  the  Dutch  merchants  had 
extended — China,  Australia,  the  Cape,  North  and  South 
America — no  corner  of  the  world  was  too  remote  for 
Dutch  enterprise.  "  The  carrying  trade  of  Holland  was  at 
its  zenith,  and  a  source  of  great  wealth  to  the  whole  country. 
Seven  hundred  ships  were  engaged  in  the  Levant  and 
Barbary  markets:  three  thousand  vessels  plied  between 
Hamburg  and  Holland,  while  many  hundred  craft  were 
concerned  in  the  home  or  Baltic  trade.  It  was  no  wonder 
that  to  strangers  the  '  stems '  in  the  harbour  of  Amsterdam 
seemed  as  those  of  the  Ardennes  forests  in  winter." z 

The  first  step  was  a  legislative  one.  In  1651  Parliament 
passed  the  Navigation  Act,  providing  that  no  goods  might 
be  imported  from  Asia,  Africa,  or  America  save  in  an 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xxiv,  13. 

2  Anna  van  Schurman,  by  Una  Birch,  Lond.,  1909,  p.  93. 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR   273 

English  ship,  with  a  crew  at  least  one-half  English,  or  in 
ships  of  the  country  where  the  goods  were  produced.  The 
Dutch  protested,  but  the  Act  gave  no  pretext  for  war. 
War  came  a  year  later  with  the  refusal  of  Tromp,  the 
greatest  of  Dutch  admirals,  to  strike  his  flag  to  Blake  in 
acknowledgement  of  the  English  claim  to  sovereignty  of 
the  seas  surrounding  the  island.  On  i8th  May  1652  Blake, 
who  had  been  lying  in  Rye  Bay  for  a  week  previously,  was 
off  Fairlight,  whence  he  proceeded  to  the  Downs  to  en- 
counter Tromp.  In  the  battle  which  ensued  on  Tromp's 
refusal  to  obey  Blake's  summons,  the  Dutch  were  defeated 
with  some  loss.  After  the  action  Blake  returned  to  his 
anchorage  at  Rye.  Open  war  followed. 

The  Dutch  were  reputed  the  leading  maritime  nation  of 
the  age,  and  victory  might  have  been  expected  to  lie  with 
them.  But  such  was  not  the  event.  The  Parliamentary 
navy  had  been  brought  to  a  great  pitch  of  efficiency,  largely 
through  the  exertions  of  Sir  Henry  Vane;  the  English 
ships  were  bigger  and  better  armed  than  the  Dutch;  the 
crews  more  efficient;  and  the  Government  behind  them 
possessed  concentration  of  purpose  and  energy  in  a  high 
degree — points  in  which  the  loose  Dutch  confederation  was 
deficient.  "Dutch  War:  cannonadings  and  fierce  sea-fights 
in  the  narrow  seas;  land- soldiers  drafted  to  fight  on  ship- 
board; and  land-officers,  Blake,  Dean  and  Monk,  who 
became  very  famous  sea-officers;  Blake  a  thrice-famous 
one.  They  doggedly  beat  the  Dutch,  and  again  beat  them ; 
their  best  Van  Tromps  and  De  Ruyters  could  not  stand 
these  terrible  Puritan  Sailors  and  Gunners.  The  Dutch 
gradually  grew  tame." l 

To  the  Sussex  coast-towns  the  conflict  was  of  the  first 
importance.  Not  only  did  many  of  the  sea-fights  take 
place  within  their  sight  or  hearing,  but  their  fishing  fleets 
and  merchant  vessels  were  liable  to  capture,  and  the  ports 

1  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  Letter  clxxxiv. 
T 


274     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

themselves  were  exposed  to  attack.  Colonel  Morley  was 
authorized  to  raise  forces  for  the  defence  of  the  county.1 
In  August  De  Ruyter  was  off  the  Sussex  coast:  a  letter 
from  Lewes  says  "  this  day  appeared  at  Brighthelmstone 
a  great  fleet  of  Holland  men  of  war  passing  by,  being  in 
all  about  80.  ...  They  took  a  Sussex  bark  near  Hastings. 
They  chased  another  fisherman  ashore  near  Brighthelm- 
stone, whom  they  plundered  and  so  left  her." 2 

A  month  later,  on  his  way  back  up  Channel,  he  was  off 
Beachy  Head,  and  the  Council  of  State  warned  the  Sussex 
ports  to  stay  all  shipping.3  On  3Oth  November  the  Dutch 
fleet  defeated  Blake  off  Dungeness.  Blake  retreated  to  the 
Downs,  and  the  Dutch  landed  foraging  parties  in  Kent  and 
Sussex.  The  London  journalists  made  a  good  deal  of  these 
incursions.  "  This  day  we  understand  by  several  letters 
from  Romney  Marsh  in  Kent,  and  several  parts  of  Sussex, 
that  the  Dutch  fleet  (who  now  lie  near  Rye)  have  come 
ashore  and  plundered  the  people,  and  driven  away  much 
sheep  and  cattle  of  a  considerable  value,  but  for  their  pre- 
servation forces  both  horse  and  foot  are  drawn  into  these 
parts.  .  .  .  Further  also  by  letters  from  Rye  they  write  that 
the  Dutch  fleet  being  dispersed  upon  that  coast,  takes  all 
vessels  and  boats  that  come  there,  and  that  the  people  are 
much  amazed,  and  full  of  fears,  the  disaffected  much  height- 
ened in  their  spirit ;  but  a  speedy  care  will  be  herein  taken 
to  curb  their  haughtiness." 4  Another  paper  stated  that  the 
raiders  "  drove  away  abundance  of  cattle  and  sheep  and 
plundered  divers  houses,  and  so  consequently  put  the 
country  into  a  lamentable  fear.  Saturday  night  the  army 
drew  into  those  parts,  and  the  foot  from  Sion  College,  and 
St.  James's,  to  prevent  the  like  invasions  for  the  future." 5 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xxiv,  Qth  August  1652. 
z  Mercurius  Politicus,  p.  1818,  I4th  August  1642. 

3  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xxiv,  I7th  September  1652. 

4  A  perfect  account,  etc.,  ist  to  8th  December  1652. 

5  The  Moderate  Intelligencer,  ist  to  8th  December  1652. 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR   275 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Dutch  war  a  somewhat  unusual 
event  occurred  at  Rye.  On  2 1st  September  the  Marline 
frigate  entered  at  the  port,  and  the  officers  informed  the 
Mayor  and  Jurats  that  shortly  before  their  arrival  the 
captain,  Peter  Warren,  had  killed  one  John  Wright,  a 
passenger  in  the  ship,  and  presented  him  as  a  prisoner, 
desiring  that  he  might  be  secured  until  further  order.1  An 
inquest  was  held  on  the  body  of  Wright,  and  the  town 
authorities  having  committed  the  captain  to  custody,  asked 
for  direction  of  the  Council  of  State.  The  Council  immedi- 
ately ordered  three  of  the  deputies  of  the  Serjeant-at-Arms 
to  go  to  Rye  and  take  into  custody  "  the  late  captain  of 
the  Marline  [or  Merlin\  frigate."  The  action  of  the  local 
authorities  was  approved ;  and  they  were  ordered  to  send 
up  three  witnesses  to  testify  to  the  killing  of  the  man.8 
Captain  Warren  was  committed  to  Newgate  to  be  tried  for 
murder.3  It  is  significant  that  in  a  petition  of  Eleanor 
Warren,  dated  2ist  October  1652,  she  is  described  as  his 
widow. 

The  Dutch  war  gave  a  great  stimulus  to  the  Sussex 
iron-working  industry,  there  being  a  pressing  demand  for 
shot  for  the  navy.  On  8th  August  1653  Thomas  Newberry 
wrote  to  the  Ordnance  officers  describing  a  journey  to 
various  forges  in  Sussex,  with  the  object  of  making  con- 
tracts. He  went  to  Colonel  Stapley  to  discuss  the  matter 
with  him,  but  found  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the  business. 
Mr.  Farrenden,  an  iron-master,  said  he  had  no  water  at 
present,  but  could  make  100  tons  by  March,  but  he  would 
not  deliver  it  further  from  his  furnace  than  Hastings  or 
Rye,  and  his  lowest  price  was  £13  ior.  per  ton.  Mr.  Ever- 
den  of  Lewes,  Mr.  Akehurst  of  Warbleton,  and  some  other 
mill-owners  also  wanted  water.  When  they  had  it  they 
would  ascertain  how  much  they  could  make,  contract  for  a 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  P-  «9- 
3  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xxiv,  137,  14°- 
3  Ibid.,  150. 


276     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

considerable  quantity,  and  deliver  it  in  March,  but  none 
would  deliver  it  further  from  the  furnaces  than  "  the  water- 
side edge."  Walter  Burrell  had  set  his  furnace  at  work 
casting  shot,  and  demanded  £14  per  ton,  to  be  delivered 
in  the  Tower.  Mr.  Stendwick's  men  were  casting  shot,  and 
he  had  fifteen  tons  ready ;  he  would  cast  five  tons  weekly, 
and  provide  100  tons  by  the  end  of  November,  and 
he  was  about  supplying  another  furnace.  Mr.  Yalden 
of  Blackdown  had  a  stock  of  metal  and  water,  and  might 
send  a  quantity  of  shot  to  Portsmouth,  only  he  was 
straitened  for  workmen  at  the  time.  As  the  previous 
week  had  been  wet,  it  was  probable  that  some  of  the  works 
would  be  furnished  with  water  soon.  "  I  offered  Mr.  Burrell 
£12  per  ton,"  concluded  Mr.  Newberry,  "but  conceive  he 
will  not  like  less  than  £13  "l 

The  Mr.  Yalden  of  Blackdown  above-mentioned,  sat  for 
Midhurst  in  Richard  Cromwell's  Parliament  of  1659.  He 
is  said  to  have  been  a  personal  friend  of  Oliver  Cromwell, 
and  to  have  entertained  him  at  Blackdown  House.2  William 
Yalden,  or  Yaldwyn,  of  Blackdown,  was  appointed  High 
Sheriff  of  Sussex  in  1656* 

In  October  1653,  with  what  object  does  not  appear,  un- 
less it  were  to  save  the  expense  of  a  garrison,  the  Council 
of  State  decided  that  the  walls  and  works  of  Arundel 
Castle  should  be  slighted,  and  the  place  disgarrisoned.  The 
Governor  of  Portsmouth  was  ordered  to  sell  the  salt  and 
victuals  then  in  the  castle  towards  the  cost  of  slighting, 
which  was  to  be  done  with  some  of  the  powder  stored  in 
the  castle,  the  rest  being  removed  to  Portsmouth ;  the  keys 
to  be  delivered,  to  Mr.  Howard.4 

1  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xxxix,  31. 

2  S.  A.   C.,  xxviii,  99.    I  can  discover  no  authority  for  this  visit. 
Dallaway  speaks  of  the  tradition  that  Blackdown  was  occasionally 
frequented  by  Oliver  Cromwell  in  secret  as  "  not  well  founded." 

3  The    documents    with    reference    to    this    appointment    signed 
"  Oliver  P."  are  printed  by  Dallaway  II,  i,  363  n. 

4  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xli,  26,  153. 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR   277 

In  spite  of  constant  war  the  manufacture  of  gunpowder 
in  Sussex  does  not  seem  to  have  prospered.  In  1658 
Captain  Walter  Everenden  of  Battle  presented  the  follow- 
ing petition  to  the  Protector,  Richard  Cromwell.  "  It  is 
experimentally  known  that  the  best  pistol  and  fowling 
powder  was  made  at  Battle;  the  maker  is  now  fallen  to 
decay  and  is  unable  to  carry  on  the  work,  and  has  applied 
to  me  for  a  large  loan  of  money;  but  I  am  unwilling  to 
enter  on  the  business  without  your  consent.  I  beg  an  order 
licensing  me  to  make  8  or  10  tons  yearly,  this  being  such 
a  proportion  as  will  defray  my  costs." '  Whether  Everenden 
established  his  business  or  not,  the  manufacture  of  gun- 
powder at  Battle  became  an  important  industry.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  it  was  reputed  "the  finest  gunpowder, 
perhaps  the  best  in  Europe." a 

With  the  decline  of  its  ports,  and  the  increase  in  size  of 
ships  required  for  the  navy,  Sussex  had  ceased  to  have  any 
importance  as  a  ship-building  county.  But  the  necessity 
of  turning  out  fighting  ships  as  quickly  as  possible,  and 
the  great  pressure  on  the  Government  yards,  led  to  the 
employment  of  every  private  yard  which  was  available. 
In  1654  the  Dover,  a  fourth-rate,  533  tons,  48  guns,  was 
built  at  Shoreham  by  a  London  builder,3  the  first  and  the 
biggest  of  the  men-of-war  built  in  that  port.  It  was  found 
that  when  launched  there  was  hardly  enough  water  to  enable 
her  to  get  out  of  the  port  to  go  to  Chatham  to  be  fitted 
out. 

As  the  war  proceeded  there  was  an  increasing  difficulty 
in  obtaining  seamen  for  the  navy,  partly  due  to  the  superior 
attractions  of  privateering.  To  an  order  from  the  Council 
of  State  that  men  should  be  impressed  for  the  service  of 
the  fleet,  the  Mayor  of  Rye  replied  that  owing  to  the 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  clxxxii,  34. 
-  Defoe's  Tour,  182. 

3  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  157;  see  also  The  Ships  and  Manners  of 
Shoreham,  by  Henry  Cheal,  Junr.  [1910],  p.  5°. 


278     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

number  of  men  already  so  serving,  the  town  afforded  none 
but  unserviceable  men,  aged  or  sick ;  and  that  the  fishing 
masters  were  so  short  of  crews  that  they  had  sent  for  men 
out  of  France,  five  or  six  apiece,  to  supply  their  wants  for 
the  fishing  season.1 

Two  or  three  years  later  when  the  naval  operations  of 
the  Commonwealth  were  extending  into  distant  seas,  the 
difficulty  of  procuring  men  for  foreign  service  became  very 
great ;  the  loss  of  life  from  disease  during  the  West  India 
expedition  of  1654-5  having  rendered  service  in  the  tropics 
unpopular.  In  January  1656  Blake  and  Lambert  applied 
to  Rye  requiring  sixty  able  seamen  to  be  impressed,  be- 
tween the  ages  of  fifteen  and  sixty,  each  man  to  be  furnished 
with  "twelve  pence  press  money  and  three  halfpence  a 
mile  conduct  to  Dover,"  at  which  town  they  were  to  repair 
before  the  Mayor,  who  would  take  care  for  the  sending  of 
them  on  board  the  State's  ships  in  the  Downs.  The  Mayor 
and  Jurats  replied :  "  We  have  done  our  endeavours  to  im- 
press the  number  of  seamen  required,  but  some  of  our 
vessels  being  abroad  and  others  laid  up  at  home  for  this 
winter  time,  few  seamen  are  to  be  found  in  this  town,  and 
those  that  were,  upon  suspicion  of  a  prest  (the  messenger 
that  brought  the  orders  coming  in  the  daytime)  fled  out  of 
our  Liberties  and  hid  themselves  in  the  Foreign,  so  that 
though  we  presently  endeavoured  their  taking  and  since 
have  searched  divers  houses  yet  cannot  meet  with  the 
enough  to  accomplish  the  number,  nor  believe  the  number 
of  sixty  can  be  found  in  town,  unless  masters  themselves 
and  others  incapable  to  do  service  should  be  added  to  the 
complement." 2  An  application  to  the  Mayor  of  Tenterden 
to  impress  seamen  who  had  fled  thither  from  Rye,  produced 
eleven  men,  who,  he  hoped,  "  would  prove  good  seamen  and 
serviceable  to  the  State." 3 

During  the   war  with   Spain   the  channel  was  full  of 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  220. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  227.  3  Ibid. 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR   279 

privateers  from  Ostend  and  Dunkirk.  The  towns  of  Hastings 
and  Rye  sent  a  joint  petition  to  the  Protector  in  February 
1656,  stating  that  both  merchants  and  poor  fishermen  were 
daily  taken  and  made  prize  of,  and  begging  that  "  whereas 
the  maintenance  of  the  fishery  of  this  nation  is  very  con- 
siderable for  the  nursery  and  increase  of  able  seamen,"  some 
measures  might  be  taken  for  their  protection,  and  also 
that  the  French  be  impeded  from  any  further  fishing  in 
English  seas  "  with  their  unlawful  nets  and  engines,  whereby 
all  our  choice  fish  and  the  breed  thereof  are  almost  and  will 
be  (unless  prevented)  utterly  destroyed."1  The  Sussex 
fishermen  themselves  do  not  appear  to  have  been  quite 
blameless  in  this  matter  of  unlawful  nets.  Desborough  and 
Lambert,  on  behalf  of  the  Council  of  State,  wrote  to  the 
authorities  of  the  Cinque  Ports  in  1655  as  follows:  "We 
are  lately  given  to  understand  that  there  is  a  sort  of  fisher- 
man inhabiting  within  the  Cinque  Ports  called  trowlers 
and  drawers  by  the  water  side  who  by  reason  of  the  small- 
ness  of  the  moakes  in  their  nets  take  up  and  destroy  all 
the  young  fish  which  they  meet  with,  to  the  great  prejudice 
of  the  public.  We  desire  you  will  forthwith  cause  public 
notice  to  be  given  that  no  person  do  henceforth  use  any 
such  unlawful  nets." 2 

In  response  to  the  Hastings  and  Rye  petition,  the  Cat, 
a  pink,  was  told  off  to  protect  the  fishermen.  But  she  her- 
self fell  a  victim  to  a  frigate  with  22  guns  and  180  men.3 
Her  captain,  Richard  Pittock,  wrote  the  following  letter 
describing  her  capture  and  his  own  plight  to  the  Commis- 
sioners of  the  Navy  from  "  Donkerke  prison":  "These 
lines  is  to  certify  your  honors  that  upon  the  2Oth  day  of 
March  1656  I  did  receive  an  order  in  the  Downs  from 
Capt.  Whitehorn,  commander  in  chief  then,  to  ply  to  the 
westward  all  the  coast  along,  until  I  came  to  Brighthelm- 

1  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cxxiv,  51. 

2  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  P-  224. 
*  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cxxvi,  128. 


28o     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

stone,1  and  then  to  bring  up  all  such  fishermen  as  were  to 
fish  at  the  North  Foreland  this  mackerel  season ;  and  ac- 
cording to  his  order  I  departed  out  of  the  Downs  forthwith. 
The  wind  being  westerly  I  plyed  up  and  gave  warning  to 
all  the  fishermen  off  Hastings,  if  in  case  any  of  them  should 
go  up,  when  I  should  return  back  from  Brighthelmstone, 
with  me,  I  would  see  them  to  the  North  Foreland.  And 
the  26th  day  we  plyed  to  the  westward,  and  betwixt 
Beachy  Head  and  Pevensey 2  we  see  a  sail  that  stood  right 
with  us,  when  we  see  that  he  was  a  Dunkirker;  and  he 
came  up  and  engaged  with  us  the  space  of  an  hour.  And 
when  he  had  spoiled  and  cut  asunder  all  our  rigging  ropes, 
and  shot  our  sails  very  much,  he  then  laid  us  aboard,  and 
entered  into  us,  a  hundred  men  or  thereabout,  which  caused 
us  to  surrender  up,  having  some  men  hurt,  and  forced  off 
our  deck.  And  now  it  is  the  pleasure  of  the  Lords  of  Dun- 
kirk to  release  all  our  men  but  myself;  and  for  my  part 
they  keep  me  a  prisoner  in  Dunkirk  until  they  have  received 
as  many  men  of  theirs  from  England  as  they  have  cleared 
of  ours,  the  which  is  in  number  thirty  and  six  men.  And 
myself  that  remains  here  in  prison  is  thirty-seven.  The  said 
Lords  of  Dunkirk  do  inform  me  that  they  have  two  captains 
of  theirs  in  York  prison,  and  all  their  companies,  which 
they  do  desire  if  your  honors  be  pleased  to  set  their  men  at 
liberty;  then  they  will  ever  hereafter  set  all  English  men 
at  liberty  that  they  have  in  Flanders." 3  Poor  Captain  Pit- 
tock  was  as  modest  as  he  was  courageous.  Captain  White- 
horn  informed  the  Admiralty  that  he  had  defended  the 
pink  very  bravely  until  his  masts  were  shot  by  the  board, 
and  he  was  overpowered  by  the  boarding  party.  He  added 
that  the  poor  fishermen  were  much  dismayed  at  the  capture 
of  the  Cat;  and  that  he  had  ordered  the  True  Love  frigate 
to  keep  by  the  Rye  and  Hastings  men,  and  the  Dartmouth 

1  Spelt  "  Broadhemson  "  in  the  original. 

3  Spelt  "Pamsey."  3  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cxxvi,  118. 


SUSSEX  COAST  AND  THE  DUTCH  WAR    281 

to  ply  to  Brighthelmstone l  to  fetch  from  thence  the  fisher- 
men to  the  North  Foreland.2 

In  consequence  of  the  capture  of  the  Cat,  two  guns  were 
mounted  for  the  defence  of  Hastings.3  Although  its  six 
biggest  guns  had  been  sent  away  to  Shoreham  in  1643, 
Rye  still  possessed  some  ordnance,  which  from  a  request 
for  powder  in  1662,  appears  to  have  been  put  to  various 
uses.  The  corporation  then  petitioned  the  Duke  of  York 
in  the  following  terms :  "  That  the  town  of  Rye  anciently 
had  more  great  guns  mounted  than  any  other  of  the  Ports 
(Dover  excepted)  which  requiring  a  magazine  as  well  of 
powder  as  of  other  ammunition,  upon  petition  to  the  Lord 
Warden  hath  been  favoured  with  supplies  of  powder  out  of 
the  Tower.  And  whereas  the  said  Town  is  so  much  im- 
poverished and  decayed  that  to  maintain  the  carriages  of 
the  guns  with  other  ammunition  necessary  is  a  very  great 
charge,  and  yet  it  stands  alike  exposed  to  the  often  use  of 
them,  both  for  ornament  upon  festival  and  other  public 
occasions,  and  for  service  as  well  sometimes  for  the  stop  of 
vessels  which  might  otherwise  steal  out  of  the  haven  with- 
out payment  of  tonnage  and  customs,  as  for  keeping  of  the 
peace  when  ships  of  war  of  several  nations  with  their  prizes 
happened  to  be  together  in  the  harbour,  and  otherwise 
might  quarrel  there,  contrary  to  his  Majesty's  peace,  the 
safety  of  the  Town,  and  the  law  of  nations.  May  it  please 
you  therefore  to  favour  us  with  the  procurement  of  some 
barrels  of  powder  out  of  his  Majesty's  store  in  the  Tower."  * 

1  Spelt  "  Brightsemson  "  in  the  original ;  the  name  seems  to  have 
been  a  stumbling-block  to  naval  officers. 
-  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cxxvi,  128. 

3  Hastings  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  362 

4  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  p.  244. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

MAJOR-GENERAL  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY 

THE  Royalist  plots  of  the  early  years  of  the  Pro- 
tectorate, organized  by  the  Cavalier  society  known 
as  "the  Sealed  Knot,"  and  culminating  in  Penruddock's 
foolhardy  rising  in  Wiltshire,  seem  to  have  found  no  great 
encouragement  in  Sussex.  In  the  general  movement  which 
was  intended  to  take  place,  the  gentry  of  Sussex  and  Surrey 
were  counted  on  to  provide  500  horse.1  But  even  this 
small  force  would  probably  have  been  found  wanting.  It 
was  one  thing  for  ingenious  and  enthusiastic  conspirators 
from  abroad  to  reckon  every  country  gentleman  who  had 
shown  Royalist  sympathies  as  a  supporter  of  their  schemes, 
and  another  for  men  who  had  already  lost  much  of  their 
estates  to  risk  the  remainder  and  their  lives  in  taking  up 
arms  against  an  established  Government.  But  these  pro- 
jects of  insurrection,  together  with  continual  plots  to  murder 
the  Protector,  countenanced,  or  not  discountenanced,  by 
Charles  and  the  Royalist  leaders  abroad,  had  their  effect 
in  driving  him  to  resort  to  measures  which  could  not  be 
justified  by  law. 

The  financial  necessities  of  the  Government  were  very 
pressing.  They  were  met  by  reducing  not  only  the  sol- 
diers' pay,  but  the  number  of  the  regular  army.  As  a  less 
expensive  substitute  a  new  local  militia  was  created.  To 
control  this  force,  and  for  other  purposes,  England  was 
divided  into  eleven  districts,  each  of  which  was  placed 

1  Clarendon  MSS.,  xlviii,  fol.  326. 
282 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     283 

under  the  command  of  a  Major-General.  William  Goffe,  a 
Sussex  man,  was  made  Major-General  of  Sussex,  Hamp- 
shire, and  Berkshire.  The  powers  with  which  he  was  in- 
vested went  far  beyond  a  mere  military  command;  they 
constituted  him,  in  fact,  a  viceroy  with  almost  unlimited 
powers  in  his  own  district.  He  was  instructed  to  "sup- 
press all  tumults,  insurrections,  rebellion  and  other  unlaw- 
ful assemblies";  he  was  to  see  that  all  Papists  and  Royalists 
were  disarmed;  to  free  highways  of  robbers;  to  permit  no 
"  horse-races,  cock-fightings,  bear-baitings,  or  any  unlawful 
assemblies";  to  send  out  of  the  Commonwealth  all  idlers 
and  persons  with  no  visible  means  of  subsistence;  to  pro- 
mote godliness  and  virtue,  and  discountenance  all  profane- 
ness  and  ungodliness;  to  see  that  the  justices  put  in  force 
the  laws  against  drunkenness  and  blaspheming;  to  inform 
the  Council  of  any  justices  found  remiss  or  unfit  for  their 
trusts. 

Against  the  Royalists  a  new  code  was  to  be  enforced. 
Politicians  in  all  ages  have  not  been  slow  to  grasp  the 
advantages  of  at  one  blow  mulcting  their  enemies  and  fill- 
ing their  own  exchequer.  The  principle  had  been  adopted 
by  the  Parliament  early  in  the  war.  It  was  now  to  be 
extended.  Royalists  who  had  taken  part  in  any  plot 
against  the  Protector  were  to  be  imprisoned  or  banished, 
their  estates  being  sequestrated  for  the  payment  of  the 
new  militia.  Those  who  appeared  "by  their  words  or 
actions  to  adhere  to  the  interests  of  the  late  King,  or  of 
Charles  Stuart  his  son,"  were  to  be  imprisoned  or  sent 
beyond  the  seas,  but  allowed  to  retain  their  estates.  The 
third,  the  most  important  class  in  Sussex,  was  composed 
of  those  who,  not  being  active  Royalists,  had  their  estates 
sequestrated  for  delinquency,  or  had  in  former  times  fought 
against  the  Parliament;  these  were  to  pay  a  "decimation 
tax  "  of  10  per  cent,  on  their  rental  from  land  if  it  amounted 
to  £100  a  year,  or  if  possessed  of  little  or  no  real  estate,  a 
tax  on  their  personal  property.  No  Royalist  was  to  keep 


284     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

in  his  house  any  of  the  ejected  clergy  as  chaplain  or  tutor; 
and  no  such  clergyman  was  to  exercise  any  priestly  func- 
tion, or  to  keep  a  school,  under  pain  of  imprisonment.1 
The  remaining  instructions  dealt  chiefly  with  moral  and 
social  order,  especially  as  regards  the  regulation  of  inns 
and  alehouses.  Justices  had  very  wide  powers  to  call  in 
and  suppress  licences  where  an  excessive  number  were  in 
force,  and  those  considered  inconvenient  and  unnecessary. 

Such  were  the  duties  which  Major-General  Goffe  under- 
took in  Sussex:  to  defend  the  State,  to  raise  money,  to 
encourage  virtue  and  to  discourage  vice,  vice  being  held 
to  include  many  pleasures  more  or  less  innocent.  He 
appears  to  have  exercised  his  powers  with  much  tact  and 
moderation.  But  nothing  could  overcome  the  unpopularity 
of  his  office.  The  Royalist  opposition  was  joined  not  only 
by  the  roysterers  and  drunkards,  but  by  that  innumerable 
class  of  good  citizens  and  good  fellows  who  care  for  the 
enjoyment  of  life  and  resent  arbitrary  interference  with  it. 
The  enforcement  of  religious  and  orderly  habits  by  a  mili- 
tary authority  greatly  strengthened  the  demand  for  the  re- 
establishment  of  Parliamentary  government,  and  led  in  the 
end  to  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy,  under  which  alone 
it  seemed  possible  to  secure  it. 

Goffe's  voluminous  correspondence2  with  Secretary  Thur- 
loe  throws  some  light  on  the  condition  of  Sussex  at  the 
time.  The  Major-Generals  were  to  be  assisted  in  their 
work  by  a  body  of  Commissioners  "  for  securing  the  peace 
of  the  country,"  who  were  to  be  named  by  the  Government 
in  each  county,  and  to  be  concerned  chiefly  with  the  pro- 
visions touching  the  Royalists.  One  of  his  first  duties  was 
to  prepare  a  list  of  suitable  men.  He  arrived  at  Lewes  at 
the  beginning  of  November  1655,  and  wrote  to  Thurloe  on 
the  5th:  "Mr.  John  Stapley  being  in  town  when  I  came, 

1  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  c  and  ci. 

Printed  in  the  Thurloe  State  Papers.    The  originals  are  among 
the  Rawlinson  MSS.  in  the  Bodleian. 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     285 

called  at  my  lodgings,  and  in  the  intercourse  we  had,  he 
seems  very  ready  to  serve  in  a  public  employment.  I 
have  assured  some  in  this  town  that  his  brother,  Mr. 
Anthony  Stapley,  is  put  into  the  Commission  of  the  Peace, 
which  I  doubt  not  you  will  make  good."1  Two  months 
later  he  added :  "  Mr.  John  Stapley  was  with  us  at  Lewes 
and  I  am  persuaded  is  very  cordially  resolved  to  serve  the 
Protector ;  he  hath  said  to  some  of  his  friends  that  he  will 
venture  his  life  and  estate  for  him." a  John  and  Anthony 
Stapley  were  the  sons  of  Colonel  Anthony  Stapley  of 
Patcham,  member  for  the  county  in  the  Long  Parliament 
and  of  the  Council  of  State,  who  had  recently  died.3  Their 
mother  being  a  sister  of  George  Goring,  Earl  of  Norwich, 
it  is  possible  that  some  doubts  had  been  expressed  as  to 
their  fidelity  to  the  Protector,  which  Goffe  set  himself  to 
dispel. 

In  his  letter  of  5th  November  Goffe  had  also  referred  to 
Colonel  Morley.  "  I  intend  (if  the  Lord  please)  to  give 
Col.  Morley  a  kind  visit  this  day,  his  house  being  within 
two  or  three  miles.  I  hope  such  a  civility  whatever  he 
thinks  of  my  business  will  do  no  hurt."  Since  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Long  Parliament  in  1653  Morley  had  been 
"almost  a  malcontent."  To  the  nominated  or  "Bare- 
bones  "  Parliament  Sussex  had  contributed  three  members, 
Anthony  Stapley,  William  Spence,*  and  Nathaniel  Stude- 

1  Thurloe,  State  Papers,  iv,  151. 

2  Ibid.,  iv,  394. 

3  The  year  of  Anthony  Stapley's  death  has  sometimes  been  incor- 
rectly stated.   The  Court  Rolls  of  the  manor  of  Preston  show  that  it 
occurred  between  i?th  April  1655  and  8th  April  1656.   John  Stapley, 
his  eldest  son  and  heir,  paid  to  the  lord,  Anthony  Shirley,  a  heriot  of 
one  gelding  in  respect  of  certain  freehold  lands  called  Weeke  Farm 
[Wick  Farm  in  Hove]. 

4  William    Spence,    barrister-at-law,    purchased    Mailing    House, 
Lewes,  of  Thomas  Lucas,  in  1656.    He  died  without  issue  in  1671, 
and  was  succeeded  by  his  brother  John,  whose  son  John  (by  Ruth 
Stapley)  married  Mary,  daughter  of  Sir  John  Fagge,  Bart.,  of  Wiston, 
by  Mary,  sister  of  Colonel  Morley. 


286     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

ley,  all  of  them  members  of  the  advanced  party.1  To  the 
Parliament  of  1654  Morley  was  elected  both  for  the  county 
and  for  Rye;  but  he  seems  to  have  lived  quietly  at  Glynde, 
and  busied  himself  with  his  duties  as  Justice  of  the  Peace. 
These  were  multifarious,  with  a  tendency  to  increase.  The 
Marriage  Act  of  1653  provided  that  only  marriages  solemn- 
ized before  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  would  be  recognized  by 
the  State,  the  main  object  being  to  put  an  end  to  defective 
registration.  Morley  was  much  resorted  to  for  this  pur- 
pose. The  Glynde  Parish  Register  records  the  marriages 
before  him  of  parties  from  twenty-six  different  parishes,  as 
wide  apart  as  Hangleton  and  Burwash,  in  the  year  i655.2 
The  Register  book  of  Preston-cum-Hove  records  similar 
marriages  before  Mr.  Anthony  Shirley  of  Preston.3  Fresh 
duties  were  continually  being  imposed  on  the  Justices.  In 
March  1655  Henry  Lawrence,  Lord  President  of  the  Coun- 
cil, wrote  to  the  Justices  of  Sussex:  "Lately  the  Virginia 
merchants  have  complained  of  their  loss  owing  to  the  great 
quantities  of  English  tobacco;  trade,  navigation  and  cus- 
toms being  impaired,  and  those  plantations  impoverished. 
You  are  therefore  to  execute  the  Act  and  not  license  the 
planting  of  any  tobacco  in  England.  But  that  persons 
may  not  suffer  loss  for  want  of  reasonable  warning  you  are 
to  have  this  resolution  published  in  all  places  in  your 
county  where  you  judge  convenient,  and  in  such  way  that 
no  person  can  pretend  ignorance;  and  such  persons  are  to 
understand  that  his  Highness  expects  conformity." 4  There 
is  a  characteristic  touch  in  the  last  sentence. 

Morley  was  also  active  in  keeping  watch  over  the  traffic 
between  the  Sussex  coast  and  the  Continent.  The  Council 
had  sent  an  order  dated  24th  March  1655  to  Sir  Thomas 

1  Gardiner,  Commonwealth  and  Protectorate,  ch.  xxviii. 

2  S.  A.  C.,  xx,  83. 

3  Numerous  other  examples  are  to  be  found  in  the  volumes  of 
the  S.  A.  C. 

4  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xcv,  71. 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     287 

Rivers,  Bart.,  J.P.  for  Sussex,  begging  that "  diligent  watches 
be  kept  for  taking  a  strict  account  of  all  strangers  in  your 
county  and  principally  near  the  sea.  ...  It  will  suppress 
loose  persons  and  cause  some  of  those  who  come  from 
abroad  to  kindle  fires  here  to  be  apprehended." l  Morley 
wrote  to  Thurloe  referring  to  this  letter  and  stated  that  he 
had  given  orders  to  an  officer  of  customs,  John  Mullet,  to 
search  diligently  in  all  vessels  for  letters  and  papers,  es- 
pecially in  any  vessel  which  should  bring  over  from  France 
one  Rose  of  Lewes,  who  often  went  between  England  and 
France,  and  was  suspected  to  be  a  Papist.  He  had  found 
several  letters  and  papers  "  directed  to  persons  of  great 
honour  and  quality"  and  enclosed  them  unopened.  He 
had  also  examined  Robert  Anderton,  gentleman,  who  had 
gone  out  of  England  on  8th  March  in  a  bark  of  Rye,  be- 
longing to  one  Keyes,  landed  at  Dieppe  and  gone  straight 
to  Paris;  and  having  made  up  accounts  with  some  mer- 
chants there  had  returned  from  Dieppe  in  a  French  shallop 
and  landed  on  the  Sussex  coast  on  loth  April;  but  he  had 
discovered  nothing  compromising.3 

Goffe  lost  no  time  in  getting  to  work  with  his  militia 
and  preparing  his  list  of  Commissioners.  On  yth  November 
he  wrote  to  Thurloe :  "  I  hope  that  soon  I  shall  have  a 
better  knowledge  of  these  blades  I  am  to  deal  with  than 
yet  I  have.  They  do  willingly  acknowledge  themselves  (I 
mean  the  militia)  as  a  new  quickset  hedge,  that  will  for  a 
while  need  an  old  hedge  about  it,  and  I  hope  his  highness 
will  be  so  good  a  husband  as  not  to  take  away  the  old  one, 
till  the  new  be  grown  very  substantial.  The  enclosed  paper 
contains  the  names  of  those  I  have  resolved  for  the  Com- 
missioners. I  do  see  the  stress  of  this  business  must  lie 
upon  the  middle  sort  of  men.  Colonel  Morley  saith  any- 
thing he  can  assist  me  in  as  a  justice  of  the  peace  he  will 
do  to  the  utmost " — but  from  what  he  said  Goffe  concluded 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  xcv,  61. 

2  Thurloe,  State  Papers,  iii,  369. 


288     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

that  he  would  not  act  as  a  Commissioner  himself,  and  had 
therefore  laid  aside  the  thought  of  putting  in  his  name,  as 
likewise  those  of  Mr.  Hay  and  Mr.  Fagge;  "the  one  hath 
not  lately  acted  in  anything,  and  the  other  hath  been  for 
some  time  too  gracious  to  disaffected  persons,  and  besides 
will  not  stir  a  hair's  breadth  without  Col.  Morley."  The 
names  of  the  Commissioners  were  as  follows.  They  repre- 
sent in  the  main  "the  middle  sort  of  men";  there  are 
significantly  few  representatives  of  the  great  county  families 
which  had  supported  the  Parliament  in  the  war: 

Colonel  Bainbridge,       ^ 

Captain  Tho.  Jenner,      j-Captains  of  the  Militia. 
Captain  Wm.  Freeman,; 
Captain  Walter  Everden,  near  Hastings. 
Mr.  Nathaniel  Studeley,  now  of  Lewes. 
Mr.  John  Stapley  of  Patcham. 

Mr.  Anthony  Shirley  of  Preston l  ("  who  I  hear  is  a  very 
honest  gentleman  "). 

Mr.  Richard  Yates  of  Warnham. 

Major  Fenwick. 

Mr.  Richard  Knowles  of  Waltham. 

Mr.  Thomas  Ballard,  Mayor  of  Arundel. 

Colonel  Richard  Boughton  of  Chichester. 

Mr.  Arthur  Betsworth,  near  Chichester. 

Mr.  Richard  Manning,  Mayor  of  Chichester. 

Mr.  John  Poling  of  Midhurst. 

Captain  Edward  Madgwick,  near  Chichester. 

Colonel  William  Goffe.2 

It  did  not  take  Goflfe  long  to  discover  that  the  proceeds 

1  The  Shirleys  of  Preston  were  a  younger  branch  of  the  Shirleys  of 
Wiston.    Thomas  Shirley,  the  last  of  the  Shirleys  of  Wiston,  was  an 
adherent  of  the  Royalist  cause,  and  was  knighted  by  Charles  I  at 
Oxford  in  1645.  The  estate  had  been  much  encumbered  by  his  father, 
and  about  this  time  he  was  compelled  to  sell  it.    The  purchaser  was 
•Colonel  Fagge. 

2  Thurloe,  State  Papers,  iv,  161. 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     289 

of  the  decimation  tax  would  be  quite  insufficient  to  meet 
the  expenses  of  the  militia.  By  the  end  of  January  he  was 
expected  to  find  six  months'  pay  for  troops  levied  the 
previous  June.  On  2nd  February  he  wrote  to  Thurloe: 
"  the  truth  is  the  money  raised  in  this  association  will  not 
amount  to  above  three  months'  pay;  for  though  I  am  not 
prepared  to  give  an  exact  account,  yet  I  do  clearly  find 
that  Sussex  will  not  amount  to  above  .£1,500  per  annum, 
which  is  but  just  half  as  much  as  will  pay  the  troops."  l 
As  a  measure  of  economy  it  was  decided  to  reduce  the 
number  of  men  in  each  troop  from  100  to  80.  On  I9th 
March  Goffe  reduced  the  troops  in  Sussex,  paying  them 
in  full  for  the  first  half,  and  was  met  with  a  demand  for 
payment  for  another  three  months  as  well.  He  was  told  by 
the  officer  in  command  that  "  he  could  not  hire  servants  at 
such  a  rate,  to  hire  them  for  a  year  and  put  them  off  at 
three  quarters'  end  with  half  a  year's  pay."  So  angry  were 
the  soldiers  that  they  at  first  refused  to  touch  the  money, 
crying  out  that  they  would  have  all  or  none.  It  was  only 
on  Goffe's  representation  that  the  third  quarter  was  not  yet 
at  an  end  that  they  quieted  down.  Goffe  owned  to  Thurloe 
that  their  grumbling  was  not  unreasonable,  as  many  had 
spent  more  than  they  demanded  in  furnishing  themselves 
with  horse  and  arms.2  To  avoid  such  personal  collisions 
between  the  Major-Generals  and  their  militia,  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  payment  of  the  men  was  transferred  on  nth 
April  to  the  Army  Committee  of  the  Council,  which  had 
previously  provided  for  the  pay  of  the  regular  forces.3 

His  increasing  financial  difficulties  induced  the  Protector 
at  last  to  consent  to  the  summoning  of  a  new  Parliament. 
The  election  was  held  in  the  summer  of  1656.  The  un- 
popularity of  the  Major-Generals  seems  to  have  more  than 
counterbalanced  any  pressure  they  could  bring  to  bear  on 

1  Thurloe,  State  Papers,  iv,  497.  2  Ibid.,  iv,  642. 

3  Council  Order  Book,  Interreg.,  i,  77,  P-  4i  5  Gardiner's  Common- 
wealth and  Protectorate,  ch.  xlix. 

U 


290     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  electors.  Throughout  the  eastern  and  southern  counties, 
which  had  been  the  main  support  of  the  Parliament  in  its 
struggle  with  the  King,  the  candidates  hostile  to  the  Gov- 
ernment that  were  returned  were  very  numerous.  The 
Protector's  Council  met  this  by  the  characteristically  arbi- 
trary method  of  excluding  all  to  whom  it  did  not  give  a 
certificate  of  approval.  "  Without  this  certificate  no  one  was 
allowed  to  enter  the  House.  Three  colonels,  backed  by  a 
guard  of  soldiers,  kept  the  door,  and  examined  the  tickets." l 
Of  nine  members  returned  for  the  county  of  Sussex  five 
were  so  excluded. 

Herbert  Morley  wrote  to  Sir  John  Trevor,  member  for 
Arundel,  whose  daughter  Morley's  only  son  had  married, 
that  he  and  his  brother-in-law,  Colonel  Fagge,  would  re- 
main peaceably  at  their  own  seats,  and  requested  him  to 
say  so  much  if  he  found  them  suspected ;  and  concluded 
his  letter  by  saying  that  he  "  could  not  enlarge  at  present, 
having  been  crazy  this  five  weeks ;  which  is  now  turned  to 
a  terrible  fit  of  the  gout,2  accompanied  with  a  feverish  dis- 
temper." 3 

Justices  of  the  Peace  and  others  in  authority  were  much 
vexed  at  this  time  by  the  extravagant  and  irritating  pro- 
ceedings of  the  new  sect  of  Quakers.  It  is  difficult  to  re- 
cognize in  the  conduct  of  some  of  these  fanatics  any  resem- 
blance to  the  dignified  and  orderly  life  of  their  successors, 
which  secured  for  them  the  confidence  of  their  fellow 
citizens,  and  made  them  pre-eminently  the  bankers  of  the 
community.  It  bore  some  likeness  to  that  of  the  more  law- 
less advocates  of  "  Women's  Rights "  in  our  own  day. 

1  Firth,  Last  Years  of  the  Protectorate,  i,  12. 

*  A  broadsheet  advertisement  of  this  very  year,  preserved  in  the 
British  Museum,  offers  a  cure  for  the  gout  in  singularly  modern  terms  : 
"  A  foreigner,  Peter  Francesse,  lately  arrived  from  Persia,  undertakes 
that  the  use  of  his  preparation,  for  outward  application  only,  will  cure 
gout,  sciatica  and  other  diseases  in  a  week."  Thomason  Tracts,  press- 
mark 669,  f.  20  (41). 

3  Noble's  Regicides,  ii,  89. 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     291 

Quakers  were  in  the  habit  of  entering  churches  in  time  of 
divine  service,  and  railing  at  the  ministers  "  as  hirelings, 
deceivers  and  false  prophets,"  or  exclaiming  to  the  preacher, 
"Come  down,  thou  deceiver,  thou  hireling,  thou  dog!"1 
Such  brawling,  and  refusal  to  pay  tithes,  brought  them 
into  conflict  with  the  justices,  and  in  Court  irritation 
against  them  was  increased  by  their  refusal  to  swear,  or  to 
show  respect  in  such  matters  as  the  removal  of  hats.  In 
consequence  they  were  frequently  treated  with  great  se- 
verity and  even  cruelty.  As  one  of  their  own  writers  has 
said :  "  It  could  not  be  expected  that  a  testimony  levelled 
both  against  the  darling  Vices  of  the  Laity,  and  the  forced 
Maintenance  of  the  Clergy ',  should  meet  with  any  other  than 
an  unkind  reception.  The  messengers  of  it  were  enter- 
tained with  Scorn  and  Derision,  with  Beatings,  Buffetings, 
Stonings,  Pinchings,  Kickings,  Dirtings,  Pumpings,  and  all 
manner  of  Abuses  from  the  rude  and  ungovernable  Rabble ; 
and  from  the  Magistrates,  who  should  have  been  their  De- 
fenders, they  met  with  Spoiling  of  Goods,  Stockings,  Whip- 
pings, Imprisonments,  and  Banishments,  and  even  Death 
itself."* 

The  "  Blessed  Testimony  and  Joyful  Tidings  of  Salva- 
tion "  were  first  preached  in  Sussex  in  March  1655  by  John 
Slee,  Thomas  Lawson,  and  Thomas  Lawcock,  who  "  de- 
clared the  truth  "  in  open  market  at  Horsham ;  "  this  was 
to  the  great  admiration  of  some,  yet  the  most  part  reviled 
and  some  stoned  them."  They  then  repaired  to  the  house 
of  one  Bryan  Wilkason  at  Nuthurst,  who  was  the  first  that 
"  gave  entrance  as  well  to  their  persons  as  to  their  testi- 
mony."3 Meetings  were  next  held  at  Ifield,  at  the  house  of 
Richard  Bonwick,  a  weaver,  and  at  Twineham  at  Hum- 
phrey Killingbeck's.  At  Southover,  Thomas  Robinson 
"  declared  the  truth  to  the  convincement  of  Ambrose  Gallo- 

'  Reliquiae  Baxterianae,  77,   116;   Gardiner,  Commonwealth  and 
Protectorate,  ch.  xxxviii. 
1  Joseph  Bene,  quoted  S.  A.  C.,  xvi,  66.  Ibid.,  70. 


292     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

way l  and  Elizabeth  his  wife,  and  Stephen  Eager."  George 
Fox  himself  shortly  afterwards  came  to  Sussex,  to  the 
house  of  Bryan  Wilkason,  where  they  met  Thomas  Law- 
cock,  who  "  being  moved  to  go  into  the  Steeple-house  at 
Horsham,  was  for  the  same  committed  to  Horsham  Gaol 
on  the  24th  day  of  the  4th  Mo:  1655  by  Edward  Michell 
and  George  Hussy,  called  Justices,  where  he  remained 
about  a  Quarter  of  a  Year."  * 

Fox  visited  I  field  where  a  great  meeting  was  held, 
"  which  was  the  first  meeting  that  was  Gathered  in  this 
County  to  Sitt  Downe  together  in  Silence  to  wait  upon  the 
Lord  " ;  and  subsequently  Steyning,  Lewes,  and  Warbleton, 
with  the  result  that  a  large  number  of  converts  were 
obtained. 

The  actual  offences  for  which  Quakers  were  committed 
to  prison  were  generally  in  themselves  trivial  enough,  how- 
ever irritating  and  provocative  of  disorder.  It  was  natural 
that  the  Government  should  take  a  more  lenient  view  of 
them  than  the  Justices,  charged  with  the  maintenance  of 
order  on  the  spot.  In  January  1657  an  order  was  made  by 
the  Council  of  State  for  the  release  of  Thomas  Patching, 
Bryan  Wilkason,  John  Fursby,  Ninian  Brockett,  Nicholas 
Rickman  and  his  wife,  who  had  been  lying  in  Horsham 
gaol  for  various  periods  up  to  twenty-four  weeks,  on  the 
grounds  (i)  that  the  evidence  did  not  prove  any  crime: 
(2)  that  the  committals  were  not  in  due  form :  (3)  that  the 
defendants  had  not  been  brought  to  trial  in  due  course  of 
law :  (4)  that  the  whole  process  was  for  matter  of  opinion  in 
worship.3  Later  in  the  same  year  a  memorandum  was  sent 
by  Henry  Lawrence,  President  of  the  Council  of  State,  to 
the  Justices  of  the  Peace  in  Sussex  and  other  counties.  For 
the  spirit  of  charity,  tolerance,  and  good  sense  which  it 
breathes  it  is  perhaps  almost  worthy  to  be  placed  beside 
Trajan's  letter  to  Pliny  on  the  treatment  of  the  Christians. 

1  A  Lewes  trader  of  good  position.  2  S.  A.  C.,  xvi,  71. 

3  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cliii,  11-16. 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     293 

"  His  Highness  and  the  Council  have  received  several  ad- 
dresses on  behalf  of  Quakers  imprisoned  for  not  finding 
sureties  for  good  behaviour.  Some  have  lain  long  in  prison, 
and  are  not  likely  to  get  out  by  conformity.  Though  His 
Highness  and  the  Council  are  far  from  countenancing  their 
mistaken  principles  or  practices,  especially  in  disturbing 
godly  ministers  and  affronting  magistrates,  yet  as  they 
mostly  proceed  rather  from  a  spirit  of  error  than  a  malicious 
opposition  to  authority,  they  are  to  be  pitied  and  dealt 
with  as  persons  under  a  strong  delusion,  who  will  rather 
suffer  and  perish  than  do  anything  contrary  to  their 
ungrounded  and  corrupt  delusions.  Therefore  His  High- 
ness and  the  Council  recommend  them  to  your  prudence, 
to  discharge  such  as  are  in  prison  in  your  county  (though 
discountenancing  their  miscarriages)  so  that  their  lives  may 
be  preserved,  divers  having  died  in  prison.  From  tender- 
ness to  them  you  are,  by  causing  their  hats  to  be  pulled  off, 
to  prevent  their  running  into  contempt  by  the  not  giving 
respect  to  magistrates,  as  those  whose  miscarriages  arise 
from  defect  of  understanding  should  not  be  treated  too 
severely." l 

Since  the  establishment  of  the  Protectorate  efforts  had 
been  made  to  put  "the  public  ministry,"  as  Cromwell 
termed  the  National  Church,  on  a  more  satisfactory  foot- 
ing. The  Protector  had  refused  to  interfere  with  private 
patronage,  or  to  abolish  tithes,  until  some  other  means  of 
maintenance  for  the  clergy  had  been  devised.  This  was 
entirely  in  accordance  with  his  dislike  to  further  change  in 
such  matters  than  were  necessary  to  secure  efficiency.  By 
an  ordinance  issued  in  1654  he  appointed  thirty-eight  com- 
missioners, known  as  "  triers,"  to  try  the  fitness  of  persons 
presented  to  livings.  Whether  they  were  Presbyterians  or 
Independents  or  Baptists  was  a  matter  of  indifference; 
"  men  who  believe  in  Jesus  Christ — men  who  believe  the 

1  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  clvii. 


294     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

remission  of  sins  through  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  free 
justification  by  the  blood  of  Christ  .  .  .  Whoever  hath  this 
faith,  let  his  form  be  what  it  will;  he  walking  peaceably, 
without  prejudice  to  others  under  other  forms."1  Another 
ordinance  provided  a  body  of  Commissioners  in  each 
county  with  powers  to  eject  incompetent  or  scandalous 
ministers  and  schoolmasters.  It  is  admitted  that  both  triers 
and  ejectors  did  their  duty  honestly  and  well.2  Great  efforts 
were  made  throughout  the  period  to  provide  fitting  main- 
tenance for  ministers,  whose  stipends  were  often  inadequate. 
The  proceedings  of  the  Committee  for  Compounding  afford 
many  instances  of  Royalists  who  were  lay  rectors  being 
compelled  to  increase  the  allowance  to  the  officiating  min- 
ister as  part  of  their  scheme  of  composition.  In  the  case  of 
Sir  Edward  Alford  of  Offington,  Sussex,  the  inhabitants 
of  Cheltenham,  Gloucestershire,  represented  that  although 
the  profits  of  the  rectory  were  ;£6oo  a  year,  and  their  town 
a  great  market  town,  with  2,000  communicants,  their  min- 
ister (who  "  officiated  on  lecture  days  as  well  as  Sundays  ") 
had  only  ^40  a  year;  and  petitioned  for  an  increase  to 
£100.  It  appears  that  the  living  was  increased  to  £80  and 
afterwards  to  £90  a  year.3  In  the  case  of  John  Lewknor  of 
West  Dean,  Ellis  Smyth  petitioned  on  behalf  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Chilgrove,  West  Dean,  Binderton,  Singleton, 
Charlton,  East  Dean,  and  Didling.  He  represented  that 
there  had  been  but  little  preaching  in  those  parishes  and 
villages  for  sixty  years  by  reason  of  the  smallness  of  the 
vicarages,  the  tithes  belonging  to  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of 
Chichester,  who  had  demised  them  to  the  predecessors  of 
John  Lewknor  for  99  years,  of  which  about  30  years  were 
to  run.  The  value  of  the  tithes  was  at  least  £500  a  year, 
and  the  County  Committee,  seeing  the  extreme  want  of  a 

1  Carlyle,  Cromwell,  speech  vi. 

2  See  the  admission  of  the  Rev.  Giles  Moore  to  the  rectory  of 
Horsted  Keynes,  S.  A.  C.,  i,  65. 

3  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1009,  1646-1653. 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     295 

preacher,  had  granted  for  two  years  past  to  Mr.  Daniel 
Curry,  a  godly  and  painful  preacher  of  God's  word,  who  was 
plundered  of  all  his  estate  by  the  enemy,  £80  per  annum 
for  his  maintenance  that  he  might  preach  in  those  parishes 
in  the  most  convenient  place;  but  he  had  returned  to  the 
western  part,  the  place  of  his  former  abode.  And  as  the 
inhabitants  themselves  could  raise  nothing,  those  villages 
having  been  extremely  plundered  by  the  King's  forces,  and 
being  utterly  destitute  of  any  to  preach  or  teach  amongst 
them,  although  they  contained  about  500  families,  the  pe- 
titioner prayed  that  out  of  the  estate  of  John  Lewknor  a 
competent  maintenance  might  be  allowed  for  an  able  and 
competent  preacher.1  From  the  same  estate  £70  a  year 
was  ordered  to  be  settled  on  the  church  of  East  Grinstead.2 
John  Ashburnham  was  ordered  to  pay  £20  to  Mr.  Ro- 
botham,  minister  of  Rumboldswyke,  £20  to  Mr.  Wesby  oi 
Appledram,  £20  to  Mr.  Abbot  of  Midhurst,  £10  to  Mr. 
Bothell  of  Merston,  and  £$  to  Mr.  Welborne  of  Funting- 
ton ;  and  to  settle  £go  out  of  certain  tithes  to  other  min- 
isters named.  Also  to  settle  £60  out  of  the  tithes  of  Oving 
upon  such  ministers  as  the  County  Committee  should  ap- 
point.3 No  less  than  378  such  grants  are  recorded  between 
6th  October  1652  and  4th  September  1655.* 

From  these  and  other  sources  a  considerable  number  of 
small  livings  were  augmented,  especially  between  1656  and 
1658.'  William  Speed,  who  had  succeeded  John  Corbett  as 
minister  at  Chichester,  was  granted  .£80  in  addition  to  a 
former  sum  of  .£90  ;e  and  the  vicarage  of  Rye  received  an 
increase  of  £70.''  With  the  same  object  many  adjacent 
livings  were  united.8  Patching  was  joined  to  Clapham,  the 
parishioners  of  the  latter  certifying  that  their  minister, 

1  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  1216,  undated,  but  probably  1651. 

2  Ibid.  3  /*«/.,  1863. 

4  Ibid.,  v,  xxvi.  5  See  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  ii,  37. 

6  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cxxxi,  52.  7  Ibid.,  clvii,  85. 

8  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  loc.  cit. 


296     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Samuel  Wilmer,  had  been  "  zealous  in  gathering  the  scat- 
tered saints  into  one  body  to  enjoy  gospel  ordinances,"  but 
was  overwhelmed  with  expense.  The  parishes  of  St.  Peter- 
the-Less,  St.  Pancras,  and  St.  Martin  were  united  with  St. 
Andrew's,  Chichester,  that  of  Earnley  with  East  Witter- 
ing, and  that  of  Climping  with  Ford ; l  Ovingdean  was 
joined  to  Brighton,2  Tortington  to  Arundel,3  and  Tangmere 
to  Boxgrove.4 

The  loyalty  of  young  John  Stapley  and  his  brother 
Anthony  to  the  Commonwealth,  of  which  their  father  had 
been  so  conspicuous  a  pillar,  was  not  long  proof  against 
the  pressure  of  family  and  social  influence.  Not  only  had 
his  mother  been  a  sister  of  George  Goring,  Earl  of  Norwich 
(she  died  in  1637),  but  he  had  himself  married  a  daughter 
of  Sir  Herbert  Springate  of  Broyle  Place,  by  his  wife 
Barbara,  daughter  of  Sir  William  Campion.  At  old  Lady 
Campion's  house  in  London  John  Stapley  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Dr.  Hewitt,  an  ex-chaplain  of  Charles  I,  who 
had  been  permitted  to  hold  the  living  of  "  Gregory's  near 
Paul's."  Hewitt  was  a  preacher  of  great  eloquence; 
"  doctor  mellifluus,  doctor  altivolans,  et  doctor  inexhausti- 
bilis,"  a  fervid  admirer  termed  him.  He  employed  his 
influence  in  the  interest  of  Charles  II,  collected  money  for 
distressed  Cavaliers,  and  in  the  winter  of  1657-8  was  busy 
hatching  a  plot.  Charles  was  to  land,  either  in  Sussex  or 
on  the  east  coast,  with  a  force  of  8,000  men,  under  the 
command  of  Marsin;  his  landing  to  be  the  signal  for  a 
general  rising,  Hewitt's  own  business  being  with  the  City 
of  London.  But  "the  doctor,"  wrote  Corker  the  Spy  to 
Morland,  Thurloe's  assistant,  "is  rather  a  Tully  than  a 
Catiline,  and  hath  been  more  prevalent  with  his  tongue 
than  his  brains."  5 

Hewitt  had  no  great  difficulty  in  winning   over  John 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cxxx,  5.  2  Ibid.,  cliv,  12. 

3  Ibid.,  clvi,  105.  4  Ibid.)  clxxx,  163. 

6  Thurloe,  State  Papers,  i,  718. 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     297 

Stapley  to  his  side.  Stapley  seemed  a  valuable  recruit;  he 
was  held  a  moderate  man ;  "  many  would  rise  with  him 
who  would  not  follow  the  Cavaliers."  Among  the  Royalists 
he  was  looked  up  to  as  the  most  influential  man  in  the 
county  of  Sussex.1  Hewitt  played  on  his  fears,  represent- 
ing that  if  he  did  not  assist  at  the  restoration  of  Charles  II 
he  was  a  lost  man,  his  father  having  been  so  prominent  on 
the  other  side;  and  on  his  ambition,  by  offering  him  a 
commission,  made  out  to  "  Sir  John  Stapley,  Baronet,"  for 
raising  a  regiment  of  five  hundred  horse,  with  supreme 
command  in  Sussex. 

Armed  with  his  commission,  Stapley  proceeded  to  Sussex, 
and  sounded  some  of  his  friends.  His  brother  Anthony 
readily  joined  the  plot.  Captain  Henry  Mallory  was  offered 
a  commission.  Stapley  appointed  a  rendezvous  with  George 
Hutchinson  of  Cuckfield  "in  a  great  furzy  field  near 
Brighthempstead,"  and  pressed  him  to  be  Major  in  his 
regiment.  Stapley  said  he  had  two  hundred  arms,  and 
had  kept  fourteen  horses  in  his  stable  all  that  winter.  Ten 
or  fifteen  days  later,  Stapley,  Mallory,  and  Hutchinson 
met  at  Hangleton  races.  Stapley  said  he  had  been  in 
London  and  seen  Cromwell,  who  "  gave  him  a  severe  look 
at  first,  but  that  they  parted  on  good  terms." 

Mr.  Thomas  Woodcock  of  Newtimber  met  Stapley 
hunting,  and  they  held  some  discourse  concerning  the 
raising  of  forces  in  Sussex.  "  It  was  but  very  little,  because 
we  were  at  that  time  in  sport  and  had  not  time  to  speak  of 
it"  Subsequently  at  Patcham,  in  his  "  own  house  in  his 
chamber,"  Stapley  offered  Woodcock  a  commission. 
Woodcock  said  he  had  no  interest  in  the  county  to  raise 
men,  but  would  venture  his  own  person  in  the  service. 

Anthony  Stapley,  who  resided  at  Lewes,  was  also  active. 
William  Dyke  of  Frant  subsequently  deposed  that  towards 

1  Information  of  Henry  Mallory,  taken  at  Preston,  I4th  April. 
This  and  other  depositions  in  this  matter  are  printed  in  Thurloe, 
vol.  vii. 


298     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  end  of  March,  being  in  Clifford's  Inn,  he  walked  with 
Captain  Anthony  Stapley,  who  told  him  there  was  a  design 
for  Charles  Stuart  coming  to  England,  and  proposed  to  him 
that  he  should  be  of  his  party.  Dyke  replied  that  he  did 
not  believe  he  could  come  in,  but  Stapley  said  that  he  knew 
there  was  a  great  party  for  him.  About  a  fortnight  later 
Stapley  came  to  his  home  at  Frant  and  stayed  a  few  days. 
He  said  the  landing  would  shortly  take  place,  and  asked 
what  horses  and  arms  Dyke  had.  Dyke  replied,  two  geld- 
ings and  no  arms.  They  went  together  to  Tonbridge  and 
stayed  to  dine  there,  and  Stapley  sent  a  messenger  to  Mr. 
Rivers,  who  lived  near,  asking  him  to  come  over  to  them. 
When  Rivers  came,  Stapley  took  notice  of  the  horse  he 
rode,  and  told  Dyke  he  intended  it  for  a  charging  horse  in 
the  intended  insurrection.  Rivers  asked  £30  for  the  horse, 
and  Stapley  said  if  he  would  take  his  note  of  hand  he 
would  give  it.  Stapley  then  told  Rivers  that  Charles  Stuart 
was  shortly  to  land,  and  Rivers  agreed  with  Dyke  that  his 
attempt  would  be  vain. 

While  the  Stapley  brothers  were  pursuing  this  very  in- 
effectual course — Woodcock  spoke  of  John  Stapley's  "  im- 
becility in  martial  affairs  " — Thurloe's  spies  were  keeping 
him  informed  as  to  the  progress  of  the  plot.  Chief  among 
these  was  a  clergyman  named  Francis  Corker,  formerly 
Vicar  of  Bradford,  who  pretended  to  be  a  devoted  Royalist, 
and  was  admitted  to  the  counsels  of  the  party.  At  the 
Restoration  he  endeavoured  to  curry  favour  by  asserting 
that  he  had  often  persuaded  Thurloe  to  liberate  Royalist 
prisoners.  He  then  asserted  that  he  had  had  little  associa- 
tion with  Stapley,  but  had  received  money  from  him,  part 
of  which  he  had  lent  to  distressed  Cavaliers.  Corker  wrote 
to  Thurloe  that  he  had  seen  the  commissions  in  blank 
directed  to  several  counties.  There  were  six  commissions 
for  Sussex,  to  be  delivered  to  Mr.  Stapley,  and  issued  by 
him  to  whom  he  pleased.  Mr.  Stapley  was  absolutely 
resolved  not  to  act  at  all  if  either  Colonel  Morley  or  Lord 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     299 

Dacre  were  put  over  him.1  But  he  was  willing  to  act  under 
Sir  Humphrey  Bennet,2who  had  "maintained  two  hundred 
horse  dispersed  in  Sussex  this  long  time."  Corker  stated 
that  officers  were  to  be  sent  from  London  to  Mr.  Stapley 
when  things  were  ready,  "  because  he  complains  that  Sussex 
is  a  country  so  little  inured  to  war  that  it  doth  not  afford 
them." 3  He  also  sent  a  list  of  the  "  active  Cavaliers  "  in 
Sussex:  Mr.  John  Stapley,  Mr.  Thomas  Woodcock  et 
fratres,  Mr.  Goring,  Mr.  Mallory,  Mr.  Nic.  Gildridge,  Mr. 
Thos.  Foster,  Mr.  Nutt,  Mr.  Selwin,  junior,  Mr.  Bishop, 
Mr.  Sackvile,  Mr.  Will  Markwick,  Mr.  Graves,  Mr.  Ash- 
burnham,  and  Messrs.  Car,  Naylor,  Hall,  and  Milnes, 
clergymen.4 

John  Stapley's  proceedings  were  cut  short  about  the  end 
of  March  by  a  summons  from  Cromwell  to  attend  him  at 
Whitehall.  In  the  presence  of  the  Protector  he  at  first 
denied  all  knowledge  of  the  plot,  but  finding  how  much 
was  known,  and  "  cajoled  by  promises  and  threats," 5  he 
broke  down  and  confessed  all.  He  then  wrote  the  following 
abject  letter: 

"  May  it  please  your  Highness, 

"  Your  misled  and  unadvised  and  now  distressed 
supplicant  doth  take  the  boldness  to  present  his  troubled 
and  despicable  estate,  that  he  is  now  brought  into,  through 
the  deceit  and  collusion  of  your  and  his  enemies,  that  sur- 
prised him,  and  through  the  delusion  infatuated  his  judg- 
ment and  reason,  that  never  was  inclined  to  a  compliance 
with  yours,  this  nation's  and  his  father's  enemies;  the 
consideration  of  which  hath  begot  a  sense  of  his  folly  which 
doth  oppress  me  much;  the  thoughts  of  my  enemies  re- 
joicing; the  trouble  of  my  friends;  and  above  all  to  be 

1  There  is  no  evidence  whatever  that  either  had  any  knowledge  of 
the  plot. 

*  Of  Shalden,  Hants.  3  Thurloe,  State  Papers,  i,  717. 

4  Ibid.,  710.  5  Clarendon. 


300     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

excluded  from  your  Highness'  favour;  but  confessing  and 
forsaking  with  God  persons  find  favour;  and  I  believe  your 
Highness  is  guided  by  the  influence  of  his  spirit,  that  1  so 
doing  from  the  sincerity  and  simplicity  of  soul,  I  trust 
through  your  Highness'  clemency  to  find  the  same.  And 
for  the  future,  I  do  promise  by  the  assistance  of  the  Almighty, 
I  will  not  only  live  peaceably,  but  with  the  utmost  of  my 
endeavours  stand  by  your  Highness  with  life  and  fortune, 
to  preserve  your  Highness'  person,  interest  and  dignity; 
and  if  ever  Charles  Stuart  should  in  my  days,  make  any 
attempt  against  your  present  government,  I  will  personally 
appear  against  him,  though  it  be  but  in  the  capacity  of  a 
private  trooper,  if  I  may  not  be  intrusted  by  your  Highness, 
or  your  successors,  with  better  preferment. 

"  My  lord,  I  do  humbly  beg  your  pardon,  that  I  did  not 
at  first  declare  to  your  Highness  the  whole  business  that  I 
was  concerned  in.  I  was  dashed  at  your  presence,  and 
astonished  at  the  consideration  of  my  sin ;  for  which  I  have 
asked  pardon  of  God,  and  do  ask  it  of  you.  My  lord,  it  is 
the  glory  of  a  prince  to  pass  by  an  offence.  I  humbly  beg 
pardon  for  this  presumption,  resolving  to  continue  as  I  am, 
and  ever  shall  be, 

"  Your  Highness' 
"  Devoted  and  faithful  servant  till  death, 

"  J.  STAPLEY."  l 

The  authorities  were  busy  at  this  time  searching  Sussex 
houses  for  incriminating  papers.  On  Good  Friday  a 
detachment  of  dragoons,  under  the  command  of  Lieut. 
Hopkins,  visited  Eastbourne  Place,  the  house  of  Mr.  William 
Wilson.  The  search  had  scarcely  commenced  when  Mrs. 
Wilson  (her  husband  being  confined  by  serious  illness  to 
his  bed)  ordered  a  large  pie  filled  with  wheatears  to  be 
placed  before  them.  "  The  officer,  it  being  quite  a  novelty 

1  Noble's  Regicides,  ii,  244. 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     301 

to  him,  was  equally  amazed  and  delighted,  and  merrily 
insisted  that  all  his  military  companions  should  taste  of  the 
rare  repast,  which  they  did  with  much  jollity,  going  away 
much  better  pleased  with  their  entertainment  than  the 
family  were  with  their  guests.  Whilst  they  were  feasting, 
Mrs.  Wilson  (such  is  her  own  account  of  the  transaction) 
went  up  to  her  husband,  then  sick  in  bed,  who  desired  her 
to  bring  him  a  file  of  letters  out  of  his  closet.  He  took  off 
one  or  more,  and  ordered  her  instantly  to  burn  them,  and 
to  stir  the  ashes,  and  then  to  call  up  the  officer;  which 
his  wife  accordingly  did.  No  sooner  was  the  officer  come 
than  he  took  hold  of  the  file  from  which  the  burnt  letter 
had  just  been  taken,  looked  at  the  papers,  and  finding 
nothing,  very  complaisantly  wished  Mrs.  Wilson  joy  that 
he  had  found  nothing  according  to  his  expectations;  'for 
had  I,'  says  the  officer,  '  found  anything  according  to  the 
information  given  in  against  him,  my  orders  were  to  have 
taken  him  away.' "  1 

Stapley  disclosed  the  names  of  all  his  associates  and  the 
details  of  the  plot  as  far  as  he  was  cognisant  of  it.  His 
brother  Anthony  also  turned  informer,  and  did  not  scruple 
to  bear  witness  against  his  own  brother.  Numerous  arrests 
took  place,  but  the  conspirators  still  planned  a  rising  in 
the  City  of  London.  Active  among  them  was  "  an  ancient 
man  in  grey  clothes,"  who  sometimes  called  himself  Carle- 
ton,  sometimes  Roberts:2  this  was  Guy  Carleton,  an  ex- 
fellow  of  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  and  a  relative  of  George 
Carleton,  Bishop  of  Chichester,  1619-1628,  and  his  son 
Henry  Carleton  of  Guyson's,  Fairlight,  a  Captain  of  Horse 
in  the  Parliamentary  army,  and  one  of  the  Sequestrators 
for  the  County  of  Sussex.3  At  the  Restoration  Guy  Carle- 
ton  was  appointed  Dean  of  Carlisle,  and  subsequently 
Bishop  of  Chichester.  The  City  rising  fixed  for  i$th  May 

1  Wilson  MSS.,  S.  A.  C.,  xi,  28. 

2  Thurloe,  State  Papers,  vii,  147. 

3  Lower's  Worthies,  p.  93. 


302      SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

proved  abortive,  and  a  few  days  later  the  conspirators  who 
had  been  arrested  were  brought  to  trial  before  a  Court 
specially  appointed  for  the  purpose.  Dr.  Hewitt  and  Sir 
Henry  Slingsby,  a  gentleman  of  Yorkshire,  who  had  en- 
deavoured to  persuade  some  officers  of  the  garrison  to 
betray  Hull  to  Charles  II,  were  found  guilty  and  executed. 
Against  John  Mordaunt,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Peterborough, 
who  had  had  control  of  the  Surrey  branch  of  the  plot,  the 
chief  Witnesses  were  John  Stapley  and  Henry  Mallory, 
who  was  to  attest  Mordaunt's  efforts  to  arrange  for  the 
joint  action  of  the  Cavaliers  of  Surrey  and  Sussex.  But  the 
night  before  Mordaunt's  trial  Mallory  fled,  instigated  and 
assisted  by  Mrs.  Mordaunt,  and  the  evidence  of  Stapley 
was  held  insufficient,1  with  the  result  that  Mordaunt  was 
acquitted.  Mallory  was  captured  on  5th  June,  and  con- 
demned to  death  but  reprieved  and  imprisoned.  Captain 
Thomas  Woodcock  was  arraigned,  and  John  Stapley  gave 
evidence  against  him,  but  he  was  acquitted.  The  case 
against  Sir  Humphrey  Bennet  was  dropped.  John  and 
Anthony  Stapley  were  pardoned,  partly  for  the  value  of 
their  information,  partly,  it  may  be,  from  respect  for  their 
father's  memory.2 

John  Stapley  would  seem  to  have  been  anxious  to  ex- 
press his  loyalty  to  the  Commonwealth  not  only  by  words 
but  by  deeds.  The  valuable  living  of  Rotherfield,  of  which 
he  was  patron,  becoming  vacant  at  this  time,  he  made  over 
the  presentation  to  William  Cawley,  who  presented  his  son 
John.3  At  the  Restoration,  John  Cawley  was  admitted  to 
holy  orders  in  the  Church  of  England  by  Bishop  King  at 

1  Thurloe,  State  Papers,  vii,  88,  101. 

2  For  a  full  account  of  this  plot  and  trial  see  Firth's  Last  Years  of 
the  Protectorate,  ch.  xii.   See  also  State  Trials,  v,  871,  883,  907. 

3  6th  July  1658.    Presentation   by  Wm.   Cawley  the  younger,   of 
Chichester,  Esq.  (in  his  gift  by  virtue  of  a  guift  and  graunt  of  John 
Stapley  of  Patcham,  Esq.,  the  Patron)  of  John  Cawley,  Clerke  to  the 
Rectory  of  Rotherfield,   void  by  the  resignation   of  Paul   Durand 
(Lambeth  MSS.,  No.  946,  m.  35). 


MAJOR-GEN.  GOFFE  AND  JOHN  STAPLEY     303 

Chichester.      He    subsequently    became    Archdeacon    of 
Lincoln.1 

The  Marquis  of  Ormonde  had  been  in  London  during 
the  winter  on  business  connected  with  the  proposed  land- 
ing of  Charles,  and  by  his  discretion,  and  the  perfection  of 
his  disguise  had  escaped  the  vigilance  of  Thurloe's  police. 
He  declined  to  have  anything  to  do  with  Hewitt's  attempt 
to  organize  a  rising  in  the  City  of  London,  and  left  Eng- 
land about  the  end  of  February.  He  was  assisted  to  escape 
from  the  Sussex  coast  by  Mr.  Sackville  Graves,  a  Justice 
of  the  Peace,  of  West  Firle.2  The  Government,  it  was  said, 
seized  the  ship  which  lay  next  to  Ormonde's,  but  missed 
that  which  actually  carried  him.3 

1  S.  A.  C.,  xxxiii,  270;  xxxiv,  33. 

2  "Aegre  dilapsus  est  Ormondiae  Marchio,  scapham  in  Sussexia 
Sackvilli  Gravesii  opera  conscendens "  (Bate's   Elenchus    Motuum, 
Lond.,  1663,  ii,  397). 

3  Firth,  Protectorate,  ii,  65. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION 

THE  Lord  Protector  died  on  3rd  September  1658,  and 
was  buried  with  a  pomp  which  belied  Milton's  saying 
that  the  trappings  of  a  monarchy  will  set  up  a  common- 
wealth. John  Evelyn  writes  of  it  in  his  diary:  "Oct.  22. 
Saw  the  superb  funeral  of  the  Protector.  He  was  carried 
from  Somerset  House  in  a  velvet  bed  of  state  drawn  by  six 
horses,  housed  with  the  same;  the  pall  held  by  his  new 
lords ;  Oliver  lying  in  effigy  in  royal  robes,  and  crowned 
with  a  crown,  sceptre  and  globe,  like  a  king.  The  pendants 
and  guidons  were  carried  by  the  officers  of  the  army ;  the 
imperial  banners,  achievements,  etc.,  by  the  heralds  in  their 
coats;  a  rich  caparisoned  horse,  embroidered  all  over  with 
gold ;  a  knight  of  honour  armed  cap-a-pie,  and  after  all, 
his  guards,  soldiers  and  innumerable  mourners.  In  this 
equipage  they  proceeded  to  Westminster;  but  it  was  the 
joyfullest  funeral  I  ever  saw,  for  there  were  none  that  cried 
but  dogs,  which  the  soldiers  hooted  away  with  a  barbarous 
noise,  drinking  and  taking  tobacco  in  the  streets  as  they 
went."1 

Oliver's  son,  Richard,  now  thirty-three  years  of  age, 
succeeded  him  without  any  disturbance,  and  was  recog- 
nized as  Protector  both  at  home  and  abroad.  But  his 
reign  was  foredoomed  to  failure.  Amiable  and  virtuous, 
but  of  no  uncommon  abilities,  he  lacked  that  power  over 
the  army  which  alone  could  make  or  unmake  him,  that 

1  Evelyn's  Memoirs,  London,  1827,  ii,  138. 
304 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          305 

his  father,  as  the  greatest  captain  of  the  age,  had  wielded. 
Conscious  of  his  impotence  to  control  the  contending  fac- 
tions he  retired  into  private  life  in  the  following  May. 
"  Tumble-down  Dick  "  long  figured  on  the  sign-boards  of 
village  inns,  and  perhaps  still  survives. 

Colonel  Morley  had  lived  in  seclusion  at  Glynde  since 
the  establishment  of  the  Protectorate,  but  to  Richard  Crom- 
well's Parliament,  which  met  in  January  1659,  he  was  re- 
turned both  for  Sussex  and  for  Lewes.  His  brother-in-law, 
John  Fagge,  was  also  returned  for  Sussex  and  for  Bramber. 
Both  chose  to  sit  for  the  county.  Among  other  members 
elected  in  Sussex  were  H.  Pelham  and  W.  Cawley  for 
Chichester,  William  Freeman  and  H.  Chowne  for  Horsham, 
W.  Yaldwyn  for  Midhurst,  Sir  John  Trevor  and  Anthony 
Shirley  for  Steyning. 

Morley  at  once  began  to  fill  an  active  part  in  affairs ;  the 
day  after  he  took  his  seat  he  protested  against  persons 
known  to  be  Royalists  being  accepted  as  members  of  the 
House:  "  You  have,"  he  said,  "  vipers  in  your  bowels,  divers 
delinquents.  I  have  taken  an  oath  to  be  true  and  faithful 
to  his  Highness  and  also  to  the  liberties  of  the  people.  If 
I  admit  Cavaliers  to  sit  here,  I  break  my  oath  in  both."  l 
On  the  question  of  excluding  Mr.  Jones,  M.P.  for  Brecon, 
for  this  cause,  he  said :  "  I  would  have  not  only  his  dis- 
charge, but  his  crime  entered  upon  your  books."  2  On  the 
debate  of  i8th  February,  with  reference  to  the  putting  of 
bounds  upon  the  arbitrary  powers  of  the  Protector,  and  re- 
straints upon  the  revived  House  of  Lords,  he  spoke  strongly 
in  favour  of  the  authority  of  the  Commons:  "I  see  this 
bounding  is  a  tender  point.  We  are  loth  to  come  to  it. 
We  are  now  putting  a  negative  upon  ourselves,  instead  of 
bounding  the  chief  magistrate,  and  now  are  setting  up 
another  house.  So  that  when  both  those  are  set  up,  we 
shall  have  a  negative  upon  neither."3  Of  the  war  with 

1  Burton's  Diary,  London,  1828,  iii,  237. 

2  Ibid.,  241.  3  Ibid,,  339. 

X 


306     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Holland  he  said :  "  My  heart  has  bled  for  the  blood  already 
spilt,  seeing  how  we  were  mistaken  in  what  we  fought  for. 
I  am  against  a  war,  unless  upon  clear  grounds.  .  .  .  The 
Council  has  made  a  dishonourable  peace  and  a  worse  war." 1 
He  expressed  his  enmity  to  military  domination  thus: 
"  You  have  taken  away  the  Major-Generals  out  of  the  field 
and  from  exercising  their  power  in  the  country,  and  you 
are  now  making  of  them  Major-Generals  in  Parliament; 
they  are  most  of  them  military  men,  that  have  forced  Par- 
liaments before,  and  if  you  make  them  part  of  your  Con- 
stitution, they  will  force  your  resolutions." a 

In  April  this  Parliament  came  to  an  abrupt  end.  The 
generals,  headed  by  Fleetwood  and  Desborough,  forced 
Richard  Cromwell  to  agree  to  its  dissolution,  locked  the 
doors  and  set  a  guard  in  the  Court  of  Requests  to  turn  back 
obstinate  members.3  The  army  was  once  more  supreme, 
but  the  officers  shrank  from  collecting  taxes  on  their  own 
authority,  and  after  some  negotiation  with  the  republicans, 
agreed  to  restore  the  remnant  of  the  Long  Parliament,  and 
to  set  up  once  more  a  Commonwealth  without  a  Protector 
or  a  House  of  Lords. 

The  fall  of  the  House  of  Cromwell  raised  afresh  the 
hopes  of  the  partisans  of  the  House  of  Stuart.  The  weary 
round  of  revolution  and  military  violence  gave  little  pros- 
pect of  settled  order,  or  relief  from  burdensome  taxation. 
All  over  England  Royalist  plots  were  formed;  but  the 
sources  of  information  on  which  Cromwell  had  relied  were 
still  available  for  the  service  of  the  Parliament.  How  great 
the  emergency  was  considered  may  be  gathered  from  the 
activity  of  the  new  Council  of  State,  to  which  Herbert 
Morley  had  been  elected  on  I4th  May.4  He  was  also 
appointed  an  Admiralty  Commissioner,  and  in  that  capacity 
was  energetic  in  procuring  seamen  in  his  own  county  for 

1  Burton's  Diary,  London,  1828,  iii,  478. 

2  Goddard  MS.,  pp.  271-2.  3  Clarke  Papers,  iii,  191-3. 
4  Commons'  Journals,  vii,  654. 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          307 

the  fleet.  On  2nd  July  Captain  Ambrose  Smith  wrote  to 
him  from  Portsmouth:  "here  are  40  volunteers  on  board, 
and  10  more  ready,  but  I  have  been  at  great  charge  in 
raising  and  conducting  many  of  them  from  Brathhampston l 
and  Shoreham,  and  other  parts  of  the  country;  most  of 
them  are  very  able  men,  and  I  doubt  not  but  speedily  to 
fill  up  the  number  of  60  men  without  impressing  any,  and 
therefore  desire  you  will  move  the  Commissioners  for 
conduct  money,  which  the  officers  say  here  is  \\d.  a 
mile." 2 

In  view  of  the  threatened  insurrection,  2,000  troops  were 
ordered  to  Arundel  and  Chichester  on  9th  July,3  and 
Thomas  Sowton  and  Major  Clarke  were  commissioned  to 
raise  a  company  at  each  of  those  places.*  Colonel  Gibbons 
was  ordered  to  march  from  Rye  to  Tunbridge,  where  a 
rising  was  expected  about  1st  August.5  On  3ist  July 
Colonel  Fagge  was  appointed  to  command  the  Sussex  militia 
troop,  formerly  under  Captain  Freeman,  and  the  whole 
militia  forces  of  the  county  were  placed  under  his  charge. 
On  the  same  day  President  Whitelock  wrote  to  Captain 
Bremen,  commanding  at  Chichester:  "the  Council  hears 
that  the  enemy  intends  attempting  Chichester  to-morrow 
morning,  and  desires  your  utmost  endeavours  to  prevent  it. 
Colonel  Fagge  is  bringing  you  reinforcements.  Capt. 
Elsmore  is  concerned  in  this  design,  and  was  apprehended 
with  horses  and  arms,  defensive  and  offensive,  and  colours 
in  his  pockets,  and  having  liberty  on  his  parole  to  attend 
Council,  he  broke  his  word  and  is  escaped ;  you  are  to  try 
to  hear  of  him  and  take  him,  and  send  him  in  safe  cus- 
tody."8 These  measures  were  sufficient  to  prevent  an 
outbreak,  but  the  danger  continued.  In  Cheshire  the  Par- 
liament was  less  successful  in  suppressing  revolt  Sir 
George  Booth  and  the  Earl  of  Derby  raised  their  standard 
at  Warrington,  gathered  some  5,000  men,  and  seized 

1  Brighthelmstone.  -  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cciii,  55. 

3  Ibid.,  62.  '  Ibid.,  91.  5  Ibid.,  92.  8  Ibid. 


308     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

Chester.  They  made  no  mention  of  Charles,  but  declared 
themselves  for  a  free  parliament,  and  government  according 
to  law. 

Active  watch  was  kept  in  the  Channel  to  prevent  a 
landing  from  abroad.  Admiral  Lawson  sent  from  the 
Downs  the  Arcadia,  Lily,  and  Swallow  to  ply  between 
Beachy  and  Chichester,  and  ordered  them  to  search  all 
vessels  passing  that  way  for  persons  suspected  to  be 
enemies  to  the  Commonwealth,  "  in  regard  he  has  intelli- 
gence that  Charles  Stuart  intends  to  make  some  part  of 
that  coast." 1  There  seems  to  have  been  some  such  design. 
Whitelock  informed  Fagge  on  nth  August  that  Colonel 
Culpepper,  of  Kent,  had  lately  been  in  Brighthelmstone 
conversing  with  persons  living  near  there,  who  were  formerly 
engaged  in  a  like  plot ;  and  instructed  him  to  take  especial 
care  of  the  safety  of  those  parts,  to  inquire  into  Culpepper's 
doings,  and  his  companions,  to  find  out  with  whom  he  was 
tampering,  and  to  secure  all  suspected  persons.2  Fagge 
made  many  prisoners,  among  them  Lord  Petre,  concerning 
whom  the  Council  "  received  such  satisfaction  from  various 
well-tried  friends,"  that  Fagge  was  ordered  to  liberate  him 
"  if  he  will  pass  his  honour  to  live  peaceably,  and  not  abet 
anything  to  the  prejudice  of  Parliament."  * 

Cowdray  House  was  once  more  a  subject  of  anxiety,  and 
Fagge  was  ordered  to  send  a  party  to  garrison  it;  and 
arms,  powder,  and  shot  were  hurried  to  Lewes  for  the  use 
of  Colonel  Gibbons'  foot  company.  Mr.  Sackville  Graves 4 
was  seized  with  his  horses  and  arms,  and  his  papers 
examined;  but  he  was  shortly  released  by  order  of  the 
Council,  on  giving  security  for  peaceable  conduct.5  Bram- 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  Navy  Papers,  p.  460. 

2  Ibid.,  cciv,  7.  3  Ibid. 

4  It  is  possible  that  his  assistance  to  the  Marquis  of  Ormonde  in 
the  previous  year  had  become  known  to  the  authorities,  and  that  he 
was  therefore  a  suspected  person. 

5  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cciv,  7,  12. 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          309 

bletye  House,  the  residence  of  Sir  Henry  Compton,  was 
searched  for  the  Earl  of  Northampton,  suspected  of  high 
treason  in  corresponding  with  Sir  George  Booth  and  other 
enemies.1  Edmund  Lane  was  removed  from  public  em- 
ployment in  the  city  of  Chichester  for  scandalous  words 
spoken  against  the  Parliament.2 

Meantime  Lambert,  with  a  large  force,  was  marching 
against  the  insurgents  in  Cheshire.  On  igih  August  he 
attacked  them  near  Warrington,  and  dispersed  them  with 
little  loss.  Booth  was  captured  and  lodged  in  the  Tower. 
The  insurrection  had  failed. 

The  Parliament  was  now  as  desirous  of  disbanding 
its  extemporized  forces  as  it  had  been  anxious  to  raise 
them.  Colonel  Fagge  was  ordered,  if  possible,  to  pay  off 
some  of  his  bands,  to  secure  their  arms  and  magazines, 
and  to  demolish  effectually  the  walls  of  Chichester  and 
Arundel.3 

Colonel  Downes,  now  a  member  of  the  Council  of  State, 
was  requested  to  write  to  the  officers  of  the  company  of 
foot  raised  by  Major  Clarke  at  Chichester,  thanking  them 
for  their  services,  and  desiring  their  readiness  to  serve 
again  if  occasion  should  require.*  A  careful  watch  was  still 
kept  on  the  coast.  At  Rye  the  Mayor  was  ordered  to  set 
a  town  guard,  and  the  companies  to  be  in  readiness  for  any 
emergency.5  "  The  Council  having  given  order  for  the 
company  of  the  army  foot  that  quartered  in  your  town  to 
march  to  Sandwich,  have  thought  good,  although  they 
doubt  not  of  your  care  of  your  town,  the  security  whereof, 
as  it  is  of  consequence  to  you,  so  of  great  concernment  to 
the  whole  nation,  to  desire  that  in  the  absence  of  the  afore- 
said company  you  will  give  order  for  strict  watch  and  ward 
to  be  kept,  that  all  such  persons  as  shall  endeavour  to  come 
in  or  to  go  out  at  your  port  whom  you  shall  suspect  to  be 
any  way  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  nation  may  be 

'  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  7.  *  Ibid.,  12.  3  Ibid.,  22. 

4  Ibid.,  30.  '  /&V/.,  22. 


310     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

stayed  and  secured." l  The  Corporation  of  Rye  had  for 
some  time  been  very  importunate  for  the  repayment  of 
certain  moneys  advanced  to  Colonel  Gibbons,  and  expenses 
incurred  for  his  troops,  "houses  hired  and  paid  rent  for, 
candles  and  coals  ";  also  of  charges  "  for  maintaining  watch 
both  for  fire  and  candle,  and  for  pay  for  drums  to  set  the 
watch  every  night,  and  for  a  gunner  and  for  powder  match, 
and  fixing  of  arms."  They  had  applied  successively  to 
Colonel  Gibbons,  Colonel  Morley,  Colonel  Fagge,  and 
the  Council  of  State  for  the  payment  of  these  charges, 
"  otherwise  the  people  here  are  so  poor,  and  the  trading  so 
much  decayed,  that  we  are  not  able  to  subsist,  but  must,  as 
many  already  speak,  leave  the  town  and  seek  a  livelihood 
elsewhere  if  no  remedy  therein  can  be  had." 2  The  sum  of 
£100  was  now  ordered  to  be  paid  to  Thomas  Marshall,  the 
Mayor,  "  for  the  foot  company  under  him,"  which  was 
perhaps  in  part  satisfaction  of  these  claims.3 

On  1 2th  September  Captain  Robert  Vesey  of  the  Constant 
Warwick,  wrote  to  the  Admiralty  Commissioners  from 
Plymouth  Sound:  "In  sailing  to  my  station  I  met  off  the 
Isle  of  Wight  a  small  open  French  shallop,  having  no  deck, 
that  came  out  of  Newhaven,  co.  Sussex,  bound  for  New- 
haven  in  France,  and  having  bales  of  goods  and  12  or  14 
English  gentlemen  passengers.  As  the  weather  was  bad 
and  the  wind  contrary,  they  could  not  get  over  for  France, 
neither  did  they  make  any  way  to  the  English  shore,  by 
which  I  supposed  they  were  of  the  discontented  party  that 
were  seeking  to  make  their  escape.  They  had  no  passes." 
The  boat  sank,  but  the  passengers  were  saved,  and  "  being 
examined  and  found  to  be  honest  men,  were  permitted  to 
follow  their  occasions."  * 

The  restored  Parliament  was  most  anxious  for  a  good 
understanding  with  Holland,  but  it  was  not  slow  to  push 
lawful  claims.  John  Baldwyn  of  Newhaven,  Sussex,  having 

1  Rye  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  234.  *  Ibid,,  230. 

3  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cciv,  22.  4  Ibid.,  27. 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          311 

petitioned,  for  himself  and  others — complaining  that  a 
small  ketch  laden  with  oysters,  bound  from  Portsmouth  to 
Colchester,  had  in  April  been  surprised  by  an  Ostender 
and  taken  to  Zealand,  and  as  was  believed,  sold  to  one 
Worts  of  Yarmouth,  and  praying  restitution  —  it  was 
ordered  by  the  Council  of  State  on  ipth  September,  that 
Mr.  Downing  learn  the  truth  therein,  and  if  it  be  as  al- 
leged, represent  the  case  to  the  States  General,  and  press 
for  compensation,  and  report  to  the  Council ;  also  that  he 
do  the  same  for  all  other  similar  cases,  that  the  subjects 
of  this  State  may  have  satisfaction  for  their  losses  and 
damages.1 

The  Royalist  plot  had  failed,  but  a  new  danger  faced  the 
Commonwealth.  The  old  schism  between  the  Parliament 
and  the  army  had  broken  out  afresh.  Two  men,  Monk, 
with  his  army  in  Scotland,  and  Montagu,  in  command  of 
the  fleet,  held  the  future  in  the  hollow  of  their  hands,  and 
no  man  could  divine  their  real  intentions.  Monk  had  sent 
unreserved  assurances  of  his  loyalty  to  the  Parliament, 
which  felt  emboldened  to  resist  the  demands  of  Lambert's 
officers  that  he  should  be  made  a  Major-General,  and  second 
in  command  to  Fleetwood.  A  body  of  seven  commissioners, 
of  whom  Herbert  Morley  was  one,  was  appointed  for  the 
government  of  the  army.2  Lambert  retaliated  by  marching 
at  the  head  of  his  troops  through  London  to  Palace  Yard, 
where  Morley,  Haselrig,  and  Walton  had  drawn  up  forces 
to  resist  him.3  Morley  met  him  pistol  in  hand,  and  swore 
that  if  he  stirred  a  foot  he  would  shoot  him.  Lambert 
answered :  "  Colonel  Morley,  I  will  go  another  way,  though 
if  I  please  I  could  pass  this."3  He  then  faced  about, 
marched  into  Old  Palace  Yard,  and  succeeded  in  occupy- 
ing the  Parliament-House,  and  denying  all  access  to 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  cciv,  32. 

2  Commons'  Journals,  vii,  796. 

3  Clarke  Papers,  iv,  71,  85,  Fleetwood  to  Monk. 

4  Carte's  Collection,  ii,  246. 


312     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

members.  The  army  appointed  a  Committee  of  Safety, 
with  orders  to  draw  up  a  new  Constitution. 

Morley,  Haselrig,  and  Walton  retired  to  Portsmouth, 
where  they  secured  the  garrison.  "  Yesterday  came  certain 
news  that  Colonel  Whetham  hath  delivered  up  the  govern- 
ment of  Portsmouth  to  Sir  Arthur  Haselrig,  Colonel  Morley 
and  Colonel  Walton,  who  have  declared  for  the  Parliament, 
and  the  navy  there  hath  done  the  like.  They  intend  to 
make  orders  about  the  army,  and  Colonel  Morley's  interest 
in  those  parts  is  very  considerable."  l  Morley  made  "  in- 
cursions into  Hampshire  and  Sussex,  where  he  had  many 
friends." z  The  three  then  sent  letters  to  the  Lord  Mayor 
and  the  Commissioners  of  the  London  militia,  demanding 
their  support,  and  entered  into  an  acrimonious  correspond- 
ence with  Fleetwood.  Troops  were  sent  down  to  besiege 
them  in  Portsmouth,  but  on  2Oth  December  five  companies 
of  foot  and  five  troops  of  horse  went  over  to  the  besieged, 
and  the  rest  of  the  besieging  force  submitted.3  "  A  very 
worthy  person  "  at  Portsmouth,  signing  himself  N.  L.,  wrote 
to  "  a  friend  of  his  in  London  "  that  "  Sir  Arthur  Haselrig 
and  Colonel  Morley  have  behaved  themselves  very  gallantly 
.  .  .  the  siege  is  raised  and  the  town  at  liberty  without  a 
drop  of  blood."* 

The  leaders  then  marched  on  London  with  a  force  com- 
prising about  fifteen  troops  of  horse  and  a  regiment  of  foot. 
They  entered  London  unopposed  on  26th  December,  and 
restored  the  Parliament.5  On  the  29th  they  received  the 
public  thanks  of  the  House.  "  Haselrig,  Walton  and  Morley 
came  into  the  House  in  their  riding  habits,  and  Haselrig 
was  very  jocund  and  high." e  But  the  shadow  of  Monk  was 
over  all  their  proceedings. 

Morley  was  appointed  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  and  his 

1  Clarke  Papers,  iv,  166.  3  Clarendon,  xvi. 

3  Public  Intelligencer,  iQ-26th  December. 

4  Broadsheet  in  B.M.,  pressmark  669,  f.  22  (30). 

5  Clarke  Papers,  iv,  170.  6  Whitelock's  Memoirs,  p.  686. 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          313 

friend  John  Evelyn  thought  the  occasion  fitting  for  an 
endeavour  to  induce  him  to  anticipate  the  supposed  designs 
of  Monk,  and  to  bring  about  a  restoration  of  the  monarchy. 
He  has  described  his  proceedings  in  his  Memoirs. 

"  Dec.  10,  1659  [this  date  and  the  following  are  evidently 
erroneous].  I  treated  privately  with  Col.  Morley,  then 
lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  and  in  great  trust  and  power, 
concerning  delivering  it  to  the  King,  and  the  bringing 
of  him  in,  to  the  great  hazard  of  my  life,  but  the  Colo- 
nel had  been  my  schoolfellow,  and  I  knew  would  not 
betray  me. 

"Dec.  12, 1659.  I  spent  in  public  concerns  for  his  Majesty, 
pursuing  the  point  to  bring  over  Col.  Morley  and  his 
brother-in-law  Fagge,  governor  of  Portsmouth. 

"  Jan.  12,  1660.  Wrote  to  Col.  Morley  again  to  declare  for 
his  Majesty. 

"Jan.  22,  1660.  I  went  this  afternoon  to  visit  Col.  Morley. 
After  dinner  discoursed  with  him,  but  he  was  very  jealous; 
and  would  not  believe  Monk  came  in  to  do  the  King  any 
service.  I  told  him  he  might  do  it  without  him,  and  have 
all  the  honour;  he  was  still  doubtful,  and  would  resolve  on 
nothing  yet,  so  I  took  leave." l 

Monk  crossed  the  Tweed  on  2nd  January  1660,  and' 
marched  southwards  at  a  leisurely  rate.  Along  his  route 
he  received  addresses  calling  for  the  election  of  a  full  and 
free  Parliament.  He  entered  London  on  3rd  February. 
On  i6th  March  the  Long  Parliament  dissolved  itself  after 
a  chequered  existence  of  nearly  twenty  years.  A  new 
Parliament,  "  thoroughly  royalist  and  perhaps  half  presby- 
terian,"2  known  as  the  Convention  Parliament,  met  on  25th 
April.  On  8th  May  Charles  was  proclaimed  King,  and  on 
the  29th  entered  London  in  triumph. 

At  Rye  Henry  Mildmay,  one  of  the  King's  judges,  was 
arrested  by  John  Baker,  corporal  of  the  militia  troop  of 

1  Evelyn's  Memoirs,  London,  1827,  ii,  144-5- 

2  Political  History  of  England,  vii,  p.  479- 


3H     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

horse  under  the  Earl  of  Winchelsea.  Baker  received  a 
gratuity  of  £10  for  his  "  good  service."  1 

On  24th  May  Evelyn  wrote :  "  Came  to  me  Col.  Morley, 
about  procuring  his  pardon,  now  too  late,  seeing  his  error 
and  neglect  of  the  counsel  I  gave  him,  by  which  if  he  had 
taken  it  he  had  certainly  done  the  great  work  with  the 
same  ease  that  Monk  did  it,  who  was  then  in  Scotland,  and 
Morley  in  a  post  to  have  done  what  he  pleased,  but  his 
jealousy  and  fear  kept  him  from  that  blessing  and  honour. 
I  addressed  him  to  Lord  Mordaunt,  then  in  great  favour, 
for  his  pardon,  which  he  obtained  at  the  cost  of  £1,000,  as 
I  heard.  O  the  sottish  omission  of  this  gentleman!  What 
did  I  not  undergo  of  danger  in  this  negotiation  to  have 
brought  him  over  to  his  Majesty's  interest,  when  it  was 
entirely  in  his  hands! " 2 

Evelyn,  courtier  and  virtuoso,  in  playing  the  tempter's 
part,  had  failed  to  understand  the  character  and  constancy 
of  his  old  schoolmate,  who  through  twenty  years  had  faced 
undaunted  the  stress  of  war  and  revolution.  If  a  history 
may  have  a  hero,  Herbert  Morley  will  fitly  fill  the  hero's 
place  in  this  one.  A  Puritan  of  deep  convictions  and  of 
unwavering  faith  in  them,  he  maintained  an  honest  and 
honourable  part  amid  the  troubles  and  temptations  of  the 
time.  No  tinge  of  self-seeking  sullies  the  fair  record  of  his 
career.  Opposed  alike  to  the  arbitrary  pretensions  of 
Charles  and  the  despotic  assumptions  of  Cromwell,  he  held 
throughout  the  revolution  a  consistent  course,  his  single 
aim  the  furtherance  of  his  principles  for  the  welfare,  as  he 
conceived  it,  of  his  country  and  his  county.  With  no  pre- 
judice for  or  against  those  principles,  one  may  readily 
render  due  homage  to  the  man  who  in  the  day  of  universal 
apostasy  disdained  to  forswear  them,  and  nobly  rejected 
the  wealth  and  honours  which  the  crisis  of  the  Restoration 
offered  to  his  grasp.  Active  and  eminent  alike  in  war  and 

1  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Interreg.,  Warrants  for  Payments,  2ist  May,  1660. 

2  Memoirs,  ii,  147. 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          315 

in  council,  in  the  capital  and  in  the  southern  counties, 
Morley  of  Glynde  holds  a  distinguished  place  among  the 
protagonists  of  the  age,  and  the  worthies  of  his  own  Sussex. 

The  Restoration  was  celebrated  throughout  the  country 
in  a  becoming  manner.  At  Hastings  the  Corporation  ac- 
counts record  payments  "to  the  musketeers  on  the  pro- 
clamation of  the  King  £1  los.  qd.  More  upon  them  in 
white  wine  the  same  day  los.  For  half  a  barrel  of  beer 
and  bread  to  the  ringers  $s.  zd.  More  to  the  ringers  upon 
the  Thanksgiving  Day  2s.  Allowed  and  paid  to  William 
Bagg  for  the  King's  arms  in  the  Court  hall  £3  5 s" l 

In  the  following  August  an  Act  of  Indemnity  and 
Oblivion  was  passed  for  the  settlement  and  quieting  of  the 
kingdom.  It  was  described  by  the  wits  of  the  day  as  an 
act  of  indemnity  for  the  King's  enemies,  and  of  oblivion 
for  his  friends.  The  regicides  and  a  few  others  were  speci- 
ally exempted  from  its  provisions.  The  honours  which 
were  distributed  certainly  exhibit  a  strong  desire  to  con- 
ciliate influential  persons  of  the  opposite  party.  The 
following  Sussex  men  were  created  Baronets:  Fagge  of 
Wiston,  Covert  of  Slaugham,  Warner  of  Parham,  Thomas 
of  Folkington,  Stapley  of  Patcham,  Juxon  of  Alborne, 
Springate  of  Broyle,  Shirley  of  Preston.  Of  these  Colonel 
Fagge  had  been  nominated  one  of  the  King's  judges, 
and  had  acted  throughout  with  his  brother-in-law  Her- 
bert Morley;  John  Stapley  was  presumably  rewarded 
for  his  share  in  the  plot  of  1658,  his  compromising 
letter  to  Cromwell  being  perhaps  unknown;  and  it  may 
be  that  his  neighbour  and  relation,  Anthony  Shirley,  was  in 
some  way  privy  to  those  proceedings,  and  was  one  of  those 
with  whom  Colonel  Culpepper  negotiated  during  his  visit 
to  Brighthelmstone  in  1659.'  Herbert  Springate  was  one 
of  the  sequestrators  appointed  to  deal  with  delinquents' 
estates  in  1643,  but  seems  to  have  taken  no  very  active 

1  Hastings  MSS.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  xiii,  4),  P-  363. 

2  See  ante,  p.  308. 


316     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

part  in  affairs  subsequently.  The  institution  of  an  order 
of  the  Royal  Oak,  to  commemorate  Charles'  escape  after 
Worcester,  was  contemplated,  but  was  never  carried  out. 
The  knights,  617  in  all,  were  to  wear  a  silver  medal  with  a 
device  of  the  King  in  the  oak  at  Boscobel.  The  scheme 
was  laid  aside  as  likely  to  revive  animosities.  The  follow- 
ing  Sussex  men  were  intended  to  be  made  knights : l 

Value  of  his  estate. 

George  Lunsford        ....     ,£600  per  annum. 
Thomas  Middleton    .     .     .     .       600          „ 

Walter  Dobell 1,000          „ 

Lunsford  of  Windmill  Hill  .  600  „ 
Edward  Eversfield  ....  600  „ 
John  Eversfield  .  .  .  ' .  .  1,500  „ 

Henry  Goringe 2,000  „ 

John  May ;"      600          „ 

Mitchelbourne  of  Stanmer .    .;>'•'•     600          „     * 

The  Sussex  gentry  had  not  been  backward  in  offering 
the  King  an  address  of  congratulation  on  his  return.3  John 
Evelyn  records:  "June  soth.  The  Sussex  gentlemen  pre- 
sented their  address,  to  which  was  my  hand.  I  went  with 
it  and  kissed  his  Majesty's  hand,  who  was  pleased  to  own 
me  more  particularly  by  calling  me  his  old  acquaintance, 
and  speaking  very  graciously  to  me."4  But  the  county 
generally  was  not  easily  turned  from  its  attachment  to 
Puritanism.  Even  in  1663  the  towns  of  Lewes  and 
Chichester  were  particularly  "perverse";  so  much  so,  in- 
deed, that  the  trained  bands  had  to  be  marched  into 
Chichester  to  prevent  an  armed  rising,5  while  a  request 
was  made  for  the  justices  to  assist  "the  honest  party"  at 
Lewes,  as  there  was  no  militia  in  East  Sussex.6 

1  S.  A.  C.,  v,  104. 

2  For  a  list  of  other  names  proposed  see  S.  A.  C.,  xxiii,  210. 

3  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  II,  i,  46.  *  Memoirs,  ii,  150. 
*  Cal.  S.  P.  Dom.,  Chas.  II,  Ixxx,  99. 

8  Ibid.,  56 ;  Viet.  Hist.  Sussex,  i,  528. 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          317 

Of  the  Sussex  regicides,  Sir  Gregory  Norton,  Anthony 
Stapley,  and  Peregrine  Pelham  had  died  before  the  Restora- 
tion, felices  opportunitate  mortis.  Of  the  remainder,  William 
Cawley  escaped  to  the  Continent,  and  William  Goffe  to 
America.  James  Temple  and  John  Downes  surrendered 
and  were  brought  to  trial. 

James  Temple,  member  of  the  Long  Parliament  for 
Bramber,  doubtless  came  of  a  branch  of  the  ennobled 
family  of  that  name;  "but  who  shall  identify  a  Temple  at 
this  time?  when  Dr.  Fuller  assures  us  that  Hester,  the 
widowed  lady  of  Sir  Thomas  Temple  of  Stow,  Bart.,  saw 
seven  hundred  descendants ;  and  assures  us  he  bought  the 
truth  of  what  he  avers,  by  a  wager  he  lost  upon  it." *  He 
was  governor  of  Tilbury  fort  or  bfock-house  in  1649.*  He 
acted  as  guardian  for  Sir  Charles  Shelley  of  Michelgrove, 
an  infant,  and  petitioned  against  the  sequestration  of  that 
estate 3 — it  was  alleged  by  his  opponents  in  his  own  inter- 
est.4 He  was  tried  at  the  Sessions  House  in  the  Old 
Bailey  on  i6th  October  1660,  and  pleaded  Not  Guilty;  but 
being  shown  his  hand-writing  to  the  warrant,  withdrew  his 
plea.  He  was  condemned  to  death,  but  was  suffered  to 
remain  in  the  Tower,  where,  it  is  supposed,  he  died.* 

John  Downes  was  tried  on  the  same  day  as  James 
Temple.  He  is  said  to  have  been  "  a  Londoner  of  mean 
family";  but  he  rose  to  considerable  eminence  on  the 
Parliamentary  side.  He  sat  for  Arundel  in  the  Long  Par- 
liament, and  was  a  member  of  the  Council  of  State  in  1651 
and  1659.  At  his  trial,  Downes  made  a  powerful  appeal 
for  mercy  on  the  ground  that  when  Charles  denied  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Court  appointed  to  try  him,  and  claimed 
to  be  heard  before  the  Lords  and  Commons,  he  had  urged 

1  Noble's  Regicides,  ii,  263. 

z  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  2862;  Cal.  Com.  for  Advance  of 
Money,  527. 

3  Cal.  Com.  for  Compounding,  2370. 

4  Mystery  of  the  Good  Old  Cause.  5  State  Trials,  v,  1217. 


3i8     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

that  this  course  should  be  adopted.  "  I  remember,"  he 
said,  "  the  persons  between  whom  I  sat,  as  it  fell  out,  were 
one  Mr.  Cawley  and  Colonel  Wauton ;  these  two  I  sat  be- 
twixt ;  these  were  the  very  words  I  spake  to  them :  '  Have 
we  hearts  of  stone?  Are  we  men?'  They  laboured  to 
appease  me;  they  told  me  I  would  ruin  both  myself  and 
them;  said  I,  'if  I  die  for  it,  I  must  do  it.'  Cromwell  sat 
just  the  seat  below  me;  the  hearing  of  me  made  some  stir. 
Whispering  he  looked  up  to  me,  and  asked  me  if  I  were 
myself?  What  I  meant  to  do,  that  I  could  not  be  quiet? 
'  Sir,'  said  I,  '  no,  I  cannot  be  quiet.'  Upon  that  I  started 
up  in  the  very  nick.  When  the  president  commanded  the 
clerk  to  read  the  sentence,  I  stepping  up  and  as  loud  as  I 
could  speak,  spoke  to  this  effect  these  words,  or  to  the  like 
purpose:  '  My  lord,'  said  I, '  I  am  not  satisfied  to  give  my 
consent  to  this  sentence,  but  have  reason  to  offer  you  against 
it,  and  I  desire  the  Court  may  adjourn  to  hear  me.1 
Presently,  he  stepped  up  and  looked  at  me;  'Nay,'saith 
he,  '  if  any  of  the  Court  be  unsatisfied,  the  Court  must 
adjourn.'  Sir,  accordingly  they  did  adjourn  into  the  inner 
Court  of  Wards;  when  they  came  there,  I  was  called  upon 
by  Cromwell  to  give  an  account  why  I  had  put  this  trouble 
and  disturbance  upon  the  Court."  Downes  alleged  that  he 
urged  that  after  the  passing  of  the  Act  constituting  the 
Court,  Parliament  had  made  an  order  that  upon  the  arising 
of  any  emergency  not  contemplated  at  that  time,  the  Court 
should  immediately  acquaint  the  House  with  it ;  and  that 
this  was  such  a  case.  "  The  King  denied  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Court,  and  yet  with  all  vehemency  desired  to  speak 
with  his  Parliament.  Were  not  these  emergencies?  if  not, 
I  knew  not  what  were  emergencies."  He  further  argued 
that  such  a  sentence  as  was  contemplated  should  only  be 
given  on  the  fullest  evidence;  "there  was  a  great  shortness 
in  this,  that  not  one  member  of  the  Court  did  hear  one  wit- 
ness viva  voce.  I  did  press  that  if  the  Court  did  give  judg- 
ment against  the  King  without  a  fair  examination,  I  said 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          319 

it  was  such  a  thing  as  no  judge  at  any  assizes  would  do 
against  a  common  person."  Cromwell  answered,  "  with  a 
great  deal  of  storm,"  that  it  was  not  fit  that  the  Court  should 
be  hindered  from  its  duty  by  one  peevish  man,  and  desired 
them  without  more  ado,  to  go  and  do  their  duty.  Downes 
further  alleged  that  he  had  signed  the  death-warrant  under 
coercion ;  "  I  was  threatened  with  my  very  life." l  He  was 
condemned,  but  was  not  executed,  and  died  in  prison. 

William  Cawley,  member  for  Midhurst  in  the  Long 
Parliament,  had  been  one  of  the  most  active  of  the  Sussex 
members  throughout  the  period.  In  1629  he  had  com- 
pounded for  knighthood,  and  had  paid  a  fine  of  £14.?  He 
was  one  of  the  few  regicides  who  obtained  a  seat  in  the 
Convention  Parliament  of  1659;  but  being  excepted  both 
as  to  life  and  estate  from  the  Act  of  Indemnity,  he  fled  to 
the  Continent,  and  appears  to  have  resided  at  Lausanne. 
His  life-history  is  summed  up  on  the  monument  erected  to 
his  father  in  St.  Andrew's  Church,  Chichester: 

JOHN  CAWLEY 
Of  the  parish  of  St.  Andrew,  thrice  Mayor  of  this  City, 

Was  buried  in  this  Church  May  3rd  1621. 

His  son  William  Cawley  was  baptised  here  in  1602. 

In  1626  he  founded  the  hospital  of  St.  Bartholomew 

Without  the  North  Gate,  now  used  as  the  Workhouse  of  this  City. 

In  1647  he  represented  this  city  in  Parliament 

And  in  the  disputes  which  arose  in  the  reign  of 

King  Charles  he  was  one  of  those  who  signed  the 

Death  Warrant  of  that  unfortunate  monarch. 
Upon  the  Restoration  he  was  excepted  out  of  the 
Act  of  Oblivion.  He  died  at  Bruges  in  Flanders 

At  an  advanced  age. 


1  State  Trials,  v,  1212.    Mr.  Gardiner,  Civil  War,  ch.  Ixxxi,  falls  into 
a  strange  error  in  this  matter.   He  says :  "  Downes,  indeed,  who  did 
not  sign  at  all,  described  himself  as  having  been   frightened  into 
assenting  to  the  judgment,  but  he  had  nothing  to  say  about  any  ill 
effects  resulting  to  him  on  account  of  his  refusal  to  sign."    Yet  he 
prints  the  death  warrant  with  Downes'  signature  appended.    At  his 
trial,  Downes  was  shown  his  signature  and  admitted  it. 

2  S.  A.  C.,  xvi,  50. 


320     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

But  it  would  seem  that  he  died  in  Switzerland.  For  a 
few  years  ago  a  tomb  was  discovered  beneath  the  boarded 
floor  of  the  Church  of  St.  Martin  at  Vevay,  bearing  this 
inscription : 

Hie  jacet  tabernaculum  terrestre  Gulielmi  Cawley  Armigeri  Angli- 
cani  nuper  de  Cicestria  in  Comitatu  Sussexiae  qui  postquam  aetate 
sua  insenivit  Dei  consilio  obdormivit  6  Jan  1666  aetatis  suae  63. : 

Major-General  Goffe  was  also  excepted  from  the  Act  of 
Indemnity.  Before  the  Restoration  actually  took  place  a 
warrant  had  been  issued  for  his  arrest,  on  i6th  April 
1660,  probably  on  suspicion  that  he  was  concerned  in 
Lambert's  intended  rising.  On  22nd  September  a  reward 
of  ;£ioo  was  offered  for  his  apprehension;2  but  he  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  to  America  with  his  father-in-law, 
Lieutenant-General  Whalley. 

Goffe  had  been  high  in  favour  with  Cromwell,  and  had 
even  been  spoken  of  as  his  possible  successor:  "he  is 
judged  the  only  fit  man  to  have  Major-General  Lambert's 
place  and  command,  as  Major-General  of  the  army;  and 
having  so  far  advanced,  is  in  a  fair  way  to  the  Protector- 
ship hereafter  if  he  be  not  treated  as  Lambert  was." 3  He 
was  one  of  the  persons  summoned  by  Cromwell  during  his 
last  illness  to  receive  his  declaration  appointing  his  son 
Richard  his  successor,  attested  Cromwell's  appointment  on 
oath  before  the  Council,  and  subscribed  the  proclamation 
declaring  Richard  Cromwell  Protector.  After  Richard's 
fall  his  importance  greatly  diminished ;  but  he  was  one  of 
four  Commissioners  sent  by  the  Council  of  the  Army  to 
Scotland  in  November  1659,  to  mediate  with  Monk  for  the 
prevention  of  a  new  civil  war. 

1  The  Consecration  form  of  the  chapel  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hos- 
pital, by  Prebendary  Deedes,  Chichester,  1909,  p.  5. 

2  By  the  King.  A  proclamation  for  apprehension  of  Edward  Whalley 
and  William  Goffe.   B.M.,  Thomason  Tracts,  pressmark  669,  f.  26  (9). 

3  Second  Narrative  of  the  late  Parliament ;  Harleian  Miscellany, 
ed.  Park,  iii,  483. 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION          321 

Goffe  and  Whalley  landed  at  Boston,  Mass,  in  July  1660, 
and  were  well  received  by  the  Governor,  John  Endicott. 
But  the  English  Government  sent  peremptory  orders  for 
their  arrest,  and  they  were  forced  to  fly.  Some  of  their 
subsequent  adventures  have  been  the  theme  of  novelists,1 
who  have  told  the  story  of  Goffe  using  his  talents  of  leader- 
ship to  defend  the  town  of  Hadley,  Mass.,  from  an  attack 
by  Indians.  He  died  there  about  1679."  He,  too,  like  his 
brother  Stephen,  had  travelled  far  from  his  birthplace,  the 
Rectory  of  Stanmer. 

The  Sussex  ports  maintained  their  reputation  as  places 
of  embarkation  for  distinguished  refugees  to  the  Continent. 
Richard  Cromwell  escaped  from  Lewes,  and  Edmund 
Ludlow  by  the  same  route  a  few  weeks  later.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  perhaps  Colonel  Morley's  protecting  hand 
may  be  traced  in  these  proceedings.3  Ludlow  has  left  an 
interesting  account  of  his  flight:  "The  time  appointed  for 
my  departure  from  England  being  come,  after  I  had  settled 
my  affairs  in  the  best  manner  I  could,  and  taken  leave  of 
my  dearest  friends  and  relations,  I  went  into  a  coach  about 
the  close  of  the  day,  and  passing  through  the  City  over 
London  Bridge  to  St.  George's  Church  in  Southwark,  I 
found  a  person  ready  to  receive  me  with  two  horses,  one  of 
which  I  mounted  and  began  my  journey.  My  guide  was  so 
well  acquainted  with  the  country,  that  we  avoided  all  the 
considerable  towns  on  the  road,  where  we  suspected  any 
soldiers  might  be  quartered;  and  the  next  morning  by 
break  of  day  we  arrived  at  Lewes  without  interruption. 
On  the  Tuesday  following,  a  small  vessel  being  prepared 
for  my  transportation,  I  went  on  board;  but  the  wind 
blowing  hard  and  the  vessel  having  no  deck,  I  removed 

1  Scott  in  Peveril  of  the  Peak,  and   Fenimore  Cooper  in  The 
Borderers. 

*  For  particulars  of  his  life  in  America,  see  D.  N.  B.,  and  the 
authorities  there  quoted. 

*  S.  A.  C.,  v,  ico. 

Y 


322     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

into  another  that  had  been  provided  for  me  by  a  merchant 
of  Lewes,  and  was  struck  upon  the  sands  as  she  was  falling 
down  to  receive  me.  This  vessel  had  carried  over  Mr. 
Richard  Cromwell  some  weeks  before,  and  lay  very  com- 
modiously  for  my  safety  on  that  occasion,  for  after  I  had 
entered  into  her  to  secure  myself  from  the  weather,  till  I 
might  put  to  sea  in  the  other,  the  searchers  came  on 
board  my  small  vessel  to  see  what  she  carried,  omitting  to 
search  that  in  which  I  was,  not  suspecting  any  person  or 
thing  to  be  in  her,  because  she  was  struck  upon  the  sands. 
But  the  storm  still  continuing,  and  the  men  thinking  not 
fit  to  put  to  sea,  we  continued  in  the  harbour  all  that  day 
and  the  night  following;  the  master,  who  had  used  the 
ports  of  Ireland  whilst  I  had  been  in  that  country,  amongst 
other  things  enquiring  if  lieutenant-general  Ludlow  were 
not  imprisoned  with  the  rest  of  the  King's  judges;  to 
which  I  answered  that  I  had  not  heard  of  any  such  thing. 
The  next  morning  we  set  sail,  and  had  the  wind  so  favour- 
able that  we  arrived  in  Dieppe  that  evening  before  the  gates 
were  shut." 1 

With  the  reward,  punishment,  or  disappearance  of  the 
principal  actors,  the  curtain  falls  on  "  the  Great  Rebellion." 
It  had  apparently  achieved  nothing.  A  Stuart  was  again 
seated  on  the  throne  of  the  Plantagenets  and  the  Tudors ; 
the  bishops  returned  to  their  palaces ;  the  nobles  embarked 
once  more  on  the  perilous  seas  of  Court  pleasures  and 
Court  intrigue.  But  at  this  distance  we  may  perceive  that 
much  had  happened  to  change  the  conditions  of  national 
existence,  especially  two  very  momentous  things.  The 
commercial  pre-eminence  of  Holland  had  been  successfully 
challenged,  and  the  foundations  of  a  British  sea-power  and 
of  a  world-wide  British  Empire  had  been  laid.  And  the 
growth  of  an  absolute  monarchy  had  been  stopped. 
Throughout  Europe  the  limited  monarchies  of  the  Middle 

1  Ludlow's  Memoirs,  1771,  p.  398. 


ANARCHY  AND  RESTORATION  323 

Ages  were  being  replaced  by  military  despotisms.  In 
England  alone  the  claim  of  the  national  assembly  to  the 
power  of  the  purse  gave  it  some  continuance  of  vitality. 
Absolutism  was  the  order  of  the  time;  in  some  European 
countries  it  has  either  persisted  until  our  own  day,  or  has 
been  removed  by  very  drastic  methods.  Perhaps  nothing 
but  the  great  wave  of  religious  enthusiasm  which  rolled 
through  England  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  in  such  counties  as  Sussex  carried  all  before 
it,  could  have  availed  to  kill  it  here.  The  wave  spent  its 
force  and  subsided  into  a  gentle  current,  but  the  edifice 
which  it  had  destroyed  has  never  been  restored.  Sub- 
sequent political  struggles  have  been  concerned  with  other 
issues. 


APPENDIX  A 

LINKS   WITH    THE   PAST 

IF  many  of  the  leading  Sussex  men  of  the  Civil  War  period 
have  to-day  no  representatives  in  the  direct  line,  there  are  not- 
able exceptions.  The  Earl  of  Ashburnham  is  seventh  in  descent 
from  John  Ashburnham,  the  King's  friend  and  companion  in 
flight.  The  Earl  of  Chichester  is  eighth  in  descent  from  Sir 
Thomas  Pelham,  member  for  the  county  in  the  Long  Parliament, 
and  a  consistent  supporter  of  the  Parliamentary  cause.  And  the 
blood  of  Cromwell  flows  in  his  veins,  as  it  does  in  those  of  so 
many  prominent  English  families;1  Lord  Chichester's  great-great- 
grandmother,  Anne  Frankland,  was  the  Lord  Protector's  great- 
grand-daughter.  Colonel  Morley  of  Glynde  left  no  heirs;  the 
Brands  hold  Glynde  through  their  descent  from  the  widow  of  his 
son  William,  who  re-married  John  Trevor.  But  Mr.  Goring  of 
Wiston  is  descended  from  Morley's  sister  Mary,  who  married 
Colonel  Fagge,  created  a  baronet  at  the  Restoration. 

Perhaps  no  existing  Sussex  family  is  so  closely  representative 
of  the  leaders  on  both  sides  in  the  Civil  War  as  the  Campions  of 
Danny.  Colonel  Campion  is  not  only  eighth  in  descent  from  Sir 
William  Campion,  whose  wife  was  a  Parker  of  Ration,  and  who 
was  killed  at  Colchester  while  fighting  under  the  command  of 
George  Goring,  Earl  of  Norwich,  then  of  Danny;  but  by  the 
marriage  of  Barbara,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Peter  Courthope 
(grandson  of  Peter  Courthope,  who  purchased  Danny  from  Lord 
Norwich)  by  Philadelphia,  daughter  of  Sir  John  Stapley,  he 
descends  not  only  from  the  Stapleys  of  Patcham,  but  from  Sir 
Herbert  Springate  of  the  Broyle,  Sir  John  Stapley's  wife  Mary 
being  Sir  Herbert's  eldest  daughter;  and  also  from  George  Goring 

1  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  p.  34. 
325 


326     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Danny,  whose  daughter  (sister  of  Lord  Norwich)  married 
Anthony  Stapley,  member  for  the  county  in  the  Long  Parliament. 

Sir  Spencer  Maryon-Wilson  is  a  direct  descendant  of  the  lady 
who  regaled  the  Parliamentary  soldiers  on  wheat-ear  pie  to  such 
good  purpose.  The  Frewens  of  Brickwall  still  represent  the 
Puritan  Rector  of  Northiam,  whose  son  became  an  Archbishop. 
If  during  the  Civil  War  the  Burrells  were  more  busy  with  their 
furnaces  than  with  public  affairs,  their  descendants  have  made 
amends  since.  In  some  cases  the  generations  connecting  the 
reigns  of  Charles  I  and  George  V  are  singularly  few.  The  present 
owner  of  the  manor  of  Preston  (long  since  passed  from  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Shirleys)  is  but  sixth  in  descent  from  Edward  Stanford, 
who  as  churchwarden  of  Slinfold  signed  the  Protestation  Return 
of  1641-2.  And  the  present  Sir  John  Shelley  is  sixth  in  descent 
from  the  young  Sir  Charles  whose  goods  were  hidden  in  a  chimney 
at  Michelgrove. 

It  is  a  pleasing  testimony  to  the  continuity  of  things  in  Sussex 
that  among  the  representatives  of  the  county  in  the  House  of 
Commons  to-day  are  a  Howard,  a  Courthope,  and  a  Campion. 


APPENDIX  B 

THE  following  account  of  a  fracas  at  Lewes  in  1656  illustrates  the 
indignation  of  the  Royalists  at  the  "  decimation  "  tax  (see  page 
283).  It  is  printed  in  the  Thurloe  State  Papers,  vol.  v,  779,  and 
in  S.A.C.,  xxxix,  62,  where  the  identity  of  John  Pellet  is  dis- 
cussed. Thomas  Woodcock  was  concerned  with  John  Stapley  in 
the  Royalist  plot  of  1658  (see  page  297),  and  Colonel  Culpepper 
was  at  Brighthelmstone  on  similar  business  in  1659  (page  308). 

"AN  INFORMATION  OF  JOHN  PELLET,  SATURDAY,  JAN.  IOTH,  1656, 
AT  THE  BULL  AT  LEWES  AT  MR.  RICHARDSON'S. 

"  Upon  a  discourse  had  betwixt  J.  Pellet  of  Arundel  and  Col. 
Culpepper,  who  curst  the  decimators  and  all  the  devisers  of  the 
decimation.  H.  Woodcock  upon  that  discourse  arising  about 
decimation,  which  being  defended  as  just  in  the  Lord  Protector 


APPENDIX  B  327 

by  John  Pellet,  the  said  Henry  Woodcock  did  with  many  reproach- 
ful words  enveigh  against  decimation  and  decimators.  And  being 
told  by  Pellet  it  was  a  mercy  in  the  Protector  and  Council,  in 
regard  the  Cavaliers  had  forfeited  both  life  and  goods,  the  said 
Woodcock  cursed  that  mercy,  and  said  if  he  had  as  many  lives  as 
he  had  hairs,  taking  himself  by  a  lock  of  his  hair,  he  would  spend 
them  all  against  such  traitors  and  rebels,  as  were  against  the 
Cavaliers.  And  being  told  by  John  Pellet  that  the  Cavaliers  had 
had  fighting  enough,  wherein  God  was  always  against  them,  and 
the  said  Pellet  told  him  thus  much,  '  We  have  always  beaten  you,' 
the  said  Woodcock  asked  Pellet  whom  he  meant  by  saying  '  we ' ; 
the  said  Pellet  told  him  he  meant  the  Protector  and  those  that 
took  part  with  the  late  Parliament  against  the  late  King's  part; 
who  had  conquered  the  Cavalier  part  at  Marston  Moor,  at  Naseby, 
Cheriton,  Oxford,  and  all  places  else,  where  God  had  given  signal 
testimonies  of  his  power  against  the  late  King's  party.  To  which 
the  said  Woodcock  replied,  saying  'You  are  all  a  company  of 
traitors  and  rebels,'  adding  these  words  '  God  confound  me  if,  in 
case  I  had  the  power  in  my  hand,  there  should  never  a  rogue  of 
you  all  have  a  bit  of  bread  in  the  kingdom ';  referring  in  his  said 
speech  to  the  Protector,  and  all  that  take  part  with  him  against 
the  Cavalier  party ;  adding  more  a  report  of  two  persons  going 
forth  to  fight,  the  one  at  his  going  forth  saying  '  Lord  bless  me, 
Lord  bless  me ' ;  the  other  whose  name  was  Leonard,  crying  out 
with  his  arms  cast  out,  'God  damn  me,  God  damn  me,  God 
damn  me';  commending  the  said  Leonard,  saying  that  he  came 
off  bravely  when  the  other  was  slain.  To  the  which  the  said 
Pellet  replied,  saying  '  Where  now  are  all  your  "God  damn  me's  "? 
Hath  not  the  Lord  trampled  them  as  mire  in  the  street  under  the 
feet  of  the  present  power?'  Whereupon  the  said  Woodcock, 
looking  round  about  him  to  observe  if  any  person  heard  him,  the 
said  Harry  Woodcock  spake  of  having  a  thousand  men  and  five  hun- 
dred horse,  vowing  he  would  cut  them  all  (having  relation  to  the 
Protector  and  present  power)  in  pieces,  and  that  before  long  time  the 
said  Pellet  should  see  it  and  feel  it.  To  the  which  the  said  Pellet  re- 
plied, saying  the  said  Woodcock  showed  what  he  would  do,  in  case  he 
had  power  in  his  hand,  as  the  Protector  and  the  present  power  had 
in  theirs;  the  said  Pellet  adding,  that  in  case  he  were  of  Council  with 
the  present  government,  such  implacable  cavaliers  and  enemies  to 


328     SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 

the  state  as  would  not  be  at  peace  in  the  nation,  he  would  have  them 
sent  to  Jamaica;  telling  the  said  Woodcock  it  was  great  mercy  in 
the  Protector  and  Council  to  let  such  irreconcileable  enemies 
have  a  being.  Whereupon  the  said  Woodcock  clapping  his  hand 
into  his  pocket,  drew  out  somewhat,  and  clapped  to  the  heart  of 
the  said  Pellet,  vowing  he  could  afford  to  pistol  him  and  calling 
him  traitor  and  rebel,  bidding  the  said  Pellet  to  honour  the  King, 
demanding  of  the  said  Pellet  which  way  he  went  home,  vowing  he 
would  have  an  account  of  him  very  speedily.  And  Francis  Wood- 
cock, one  of  the  brothers  of  the  said  Henry,  coming  into  the 
chamber  at  that  instant,  it  being  the  lodging  chamber  of  the  said 
John  Pellet,  the  said  Henry  Woodcock  began  to  repeat  to  his  said 
brother  part  of  the  former  discourse;  and  forthwith  the  said 
Francis  Woodcock  said,  in  case  he  had  said  so  much  to  him,  he 
would  have  thrown  the  beer  in  his  face;  and  struck  the  said  Pellet 
standing  peaceably  by  the  fireside  with  a  glass  filled  with  beer  in 
the  face,  giving  the  said  Pellet  three  wounds  near  the  eye.  And 
the  said  Henry  did  at  that  instant  catch  the  said  Pellet  by  the 
hair,  and  both  of  the  Woodcocks  did  wound  and  violently  beat 
and  abuse  the  said  Pellet,  giving  him  six  wounds  in  the  head  and 
face,  tearing  his  clothes,  and  plucking  much  of  his  hair  off  his 
head  and  laming  him  in  the  leg,  insomuch  by  effusion  of  blood 
running  from  the  said  wounds,  two  table-napkins  were  soaked  in 
blood;  the  said  Pellet's  clothes  being  exceeding  bloody,  his  wounds 
bleeding  all  night,  although  dressed  by  an  able  surgeon. 

"  And  the  said  Pellet  upon  oath  further  saith  that  the  said  Henry 
Woodcock  at  the  time  of  this  discourse  was  very  sober,  and  did 
well  understand  what  he  spake,  and  that  during  this  discourse, 
which  lasted  about  an  hour  in  the  said  Pellet's  chamber,  where 
there  was  no  person  present  in  the  said  chamber,  during  the  dis- 
course aforesaid,  but  the  said  Pellet  and  the  said  Henry  Woodcock. 

"  And  the  said  John  Pellet  upon  oath  saith  that  at  the  time  of 
the  battery  there  was  no  person  present,  but  William  Gratwick  of 
Torton;  and  that  the  said  Pellet  used  not  a  word  of  provocation 
to  Francis  Woodcock  nor  to  the  said  Henry;  for  truth  whereof 
Pellet  refers  to  the  testimony  of  the  said  William  Gratwick. 

"  I  do  upon  this  i2th  of  Jan.  1656  upon  oath,  testify  the  whole 
above  written  narrative  and  discovery, 

"JOHN  PELLET." 


APPENDIX  B  329 

This  was  given  in  to  Mr.  Boughton  at  Lewes  the  loth  January 
1656. 

Pellet  subsequently  made  the  following  further  deposition: 

"The  occasion  of  that  controversy  which  arose  at  the  Bull, 
Lewes  betwixt  Henry  Woodcock  and  John  Pellet  was  by  means 
of  one  Culpepper,  who  being  in  the  chamber  of  John  Pellet, 
refused  his  part  of  the  reckoning;  and  being  thereunto  requested 
by  John  Pellet,  he  answered  he  was  decimated  for  his  sins  and 
demerits.  Hereupon  he  cursed,  '  The  plague  of  God  take  the 
decimators,  and  all  that  devised  decimation.'  The  said  Pellet 
affirmed  it  was  just  in  the  Protector  and  his  Council,  since  the 
cavaliers  had  forfeited  lives  and  estates.  And  the  said  Pellet  being 
asked  if  he  would  justify  decimation,  since  it  was  after  the  act  of 
oblivion  and  composition,  Pellet  replied  and  said,  '  the  Parliament 
did  not  omit  them  to  composition  and  pass  the  act  of  oblivion  to 
render  the  Cavaliers  able  to  cut  the  Parliament's  own  throats.' 
Hereupon  the  said  Colonel  Culpepper  cursed  the  late  parliament, 
saying  they  were  rogues  and  villains  and  knaves,  and  pulled  out  by 
the  ears  for  their  knavery ;  which  being  denied  by  Pellet,  and  he 
telling  the  said  Culpepper  the  Cavaliers  were  the  conquered  party, 
the  company  broke  up;  and  presently  after  the  within  written 
Henry  Woodcock  laid  hold  of  Pellet,  telling  him  he  would  have 
an  account  of  him  for  speaking  against  the  Cavalier  party;  and 
thereupon  ensued  the  within  written  discourse  between  Henry 
Woodcock  and  Pellet. 

"  JOHN  PELLET." 

This  was  given  in  upon  oath  at  Lewes  the  2ist  January  1656 
before  the  Commissioners. 


INDEX 


ABBOT,  Mr.,  295. 
Abingdon,  Sussex  troops  for  the 
garrison  at,  173. 

Adur,  Morley  falls  back  on  the,  78. 
Royalist  advance  east  of  the,  stopped, 

79- 

Akehurst,  Mr.,  of  Warbleton,  275. 
Alberry,  John,  churchwarden  of  Arun- 

del,  28. 

Albourne  Place,  223. 
Alford,  Sir  Edward,  member  for  Arun- 

del,  16. 

fined  on  Exeter  Articles,  131. 
and    the    Rectory    of   Cheltenham, 

294. 

Algerian  pirates,  in  the  Channel,  14. 
Allen,  John,  goldsmith  of  Rye,  13. 
Alton,  Waller's  attack  on,  82. 
the  prisoners  taken  at,  86. 
Crawford  leaves  his  sack  at,  90. 
Amberley  Castle,  seized  for  the  Parlia- 
ment, 129. 
Anderson,  Mr.  Robert,  at  Chichester, 

44. 

fined,  126. 

Anderton,  Robert,  287. 
Andrews,  Bishop,  29. 
Appledram,  295. 
Apsley,  Colonel  Edward,  his  narrative 

of  his  capture,  74. 

member  of  Sussex  Sequestrating  Com- 
mittee, 1 20. 
member  for  Steyning,  endeavours  to 

raise  a  regiment,  157. 
Apsley,  John,  at  Chichester,  45. 

admitted  to  compound,  130. 
Apsley,  Mr.,   Rector   of  Pulborough, 
141. 


Archdeaconry  Court  of  Lewes,  25. 

records  of,  26. 

Ardingley,    the     incumbent    of,     se- 
questered, 142. 

Arlington,     the     incumbent     of,     se- 
questered, 142. 
Armies,  components  of  the  Royal  and 

Parliamentary,  34. 
Articles  of  Surrender,  126. 
Artillery  in  the  Civil  War,  35. 
Arundel,  3. 
Sir  Edward  Alford  elected  member 

for,  1 6. 

Sir  N.  Brent's  visitation  to,  28. 
the  castle  captured  by  a  Roundhead 

force,  51. 

recaptured  by  Ford  and  Bishop,  72. 
Waller  advances  on,  82. 

attacks  and  captures  the  town,  85. 
lays  siege  to  the  castle,  86. 
incidents  of  the  siege  of,  88. 
the  terms  of  surrender  of,  93. 
the  prisoners  taken  at,  94. 
Colonels  Morley  and  Springate  joint 

governors  of,  95. 
the  damage  suffered  by,  96. 
Chillingworth's  part  in  the  siege  of, 
IOI. 

victims  to  the  insanitary  state  of, 

no. 

Lady  Springate  summoned  to,  115. 
the  town's  desolation,  116. 
the  incumbent  of,  sequestered,  142. 
wreck  of  the  St.  James  near,  151. 
the  castle  used  as  a  magazine,  156. 
garrisoned  by  the  trained  bands,  162. 
Captain    Morley  governor  of,    169, 

259. 


331 


332        SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Arundel — continued. 

Ordnance  brought  from   Chichester 
to,  173. 

design  to  remove  the  Horsham  maga- 
zine to,  197. 

Charles  II's  narrow  escape  at,  259. 

the  castle  slighted,  276. 
Arundel,  Mr. ,  his  sons  captured  at  sea, 

65- 
Arundel,  Thomas,  Earl  of,  4,  50. 

his  estates  sequestered,  122. 
Ashbee,  Thomas,  of  Maresfield,  27. 
Ashburnham,  John,  member  for  Hast- 
ings, 16. 

treasurer  to  the  King,  19. 

fined  half  his  estate,  121. 

his  early  life,  185. 

accompanies  the  King  from  Oxford, 
186. 

escapes  with  the  King  from  Hampton 
Court,  187. 

offers  to  kill  Hammond,  188. 

his  projects  of  escape,  188. 

restores  the  fortunes   of  his  family 
by  marriage,  189. 

his  descendant's  vindication   of  his 
character,  190. 

and  Coke's  plot,  228. 

ordered  to  augment  certain  livings, 

295- 
his  descendants,  325. 

Ashburnham,     Lawrence,     appointed 
deputy-lieutenant,  156. 

Ashburnhams,  the,  a  Royalist  family,  4. 

Ashford,  John,  161. 

Association,  Decree  of,  for  the  southern 
counties,  67. 

Astley,  Sir  Jacob,  33. 

Aylen,  a  leader  of  the  Clubmen,  169. 

Aylwine,  John,   receiver  of  contribu- 
tions at  Lewes,  156. 

Bagant,  William,  of  Alfriston,  27. 

Bainbridge,  Colonel,  288. 

Baker,  Mr.  John,  Justice  of  the  Peace,  31. 

High  Sheriff,  73. 

member  of  Sussex  Sequestrating  Com- 
mittee, ^120. 


Baker,  John,  Corporal,  313. 
Baker,  Thomas,  of  Rustington,  234. 
Baker,  William,  222. 
Baldwyn,  John,  310. 
Balfour,  Sir  William,  19. 
Ballard,  Thomas,  288. 
Ballow,  Mrs.,  139. 
Balnidine,  Sir  William,  53. 
Bamford,  or  Bamfield,  Colonel,  84. 
Barkham,  in  Fletching,  240. 
Barlow,  of  Hastings,  149. 
Barnstaple  Articles  of  Surrender,  128. 
Baronets   created   at   the  Restoration 

3'5- 

Barret,  Bridget,  of  Wivelsfield,  27. 
Basing  House : 

Colonel  Morley  at  the  siege  of,  158. 
effect  of  its  resistance  on  Sussex,  161. 
Sussex  troops  for  the  siege  of,  165. 
Batnor,  Rev.  John,  of  Westmeston,  26. 
Batten,  Alice,  wife  of  John,  232. 
Battle,  local  Committee  of  Plundered 

Ministers  at,  138. 
Samuel  Gott  at,  241. 
Baude,  Peter,  ironfounder,  9. 
Bayne,  Colonel,  at  Arundel,  87. 
Beachy  Head,  Dunkirk  privateers  at, 

268. 

Beeding,  Charles  II  at,  259. 
Beeding  Bridge,  201. 
Bellingham,  Mr. ,  rides  from  Chichester 

to  Portsmouth,  39. 
Benbrick,  Joseph,  of  Rye,  27. 
Bennett,  Colonel,  66. 
Bennett,   Sir  Humphrey,  his  prepara- 
tions in  Sussex,  299. 
the  case  against  him  dropped,  302. 
Berkeley,    Sir   John,    with    Ford    at 

Reading,  98. 

and  John  Ashburnham,  188,  190. 
Berkshire,  manifesto  of  the  Clubmen  in, 

167. 
Bessano,  Master,  a  Counsellor-at-Law, 

150. 

Betsworth,  Arthur,  288. 
Bexhill,  the  incumbent  of,  sequestered, 

143- 
Bible,  the  influence  of  the,  22. 


INDEX 


333 


Bide,  Rev.  Thomas,  of  Crawley,  26. 

Bigge,  Mr.,  139. 

Billingshurst,  population  of,  in  1641-2, 

18. 
Binderton,  the  Protestation  return  from, 

17- 

the  living  of,  294. 
Bingham,  Governor  of  Poole,  160. 
Binnes,  Thomas,  of  West  Hoathly,  27. 
Bishop,  Henry,  of  Henfield:  petition 

from  Virginia  in  favour  of,  125. 
Bishop,  Mr.,  299. 
Bishop,  Lady,  entertained  by  Waller, 

92. 
Bishop,  Sir  Edward,  of  Parham,  with 

Ford  at  Chichester,  45. 
at  Arundel,  72. 
drives  away  Colonel  Apsley's  sheep, 

75- 

hostage  for  the  surrender  of  Arundel, 

93- 

declared  incapable  of  any  employ- 
ment, 97. 

a  prisoner  in  the  Tower,  124. 
sequestration  of  his  estate,  125. 
Bishops,   the,   of  Parham,  a  Royalist 

family,  4. 

Blackdown  House,  14,  276. 
Blake,  in  Rye  Bay,  273. 
defeated  off  Dungeness,  274. 
orders  the  impressment  of  seamen, 

278. 

Board,  Herbert,  member  of  Sussex  Se- 
questrating Committee,  120. 
Bodley,  Major,  at  Arundel,  87. 
Bond,  Mr.,  227. 
Bonwick,  Richard,  291. 
Book  of  Sports,  the,  230. 
Booker,  Richard,  of  Pulborough,  fined, 

126. 

Borde,  Andrew,  u. 
Borstall  Articles  of  Surrender,  134. 
Borstall  House,  defended  by  Sir  Wil- 
liam Campion,  192. 
Bothell,  Mr.,  295. 
Boughton,   Colonel    Richard,   one    of 

Goffe's  commissioners,  288,  329. 
Boulte,  Mr.  John,  140. 


Bow  Hill,  257. 

Bowyer,  Sir  Thomas,  his  origin,  15. 

member  for  Bramber,  16. 

at  Chichester,  39. 

expelled  from  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 43. 

sends  a  horse  to  Chichester,  45. 

made  prisoner  by  Waller,  56. 

his  estate  sequestered,  122. 
Bramber,  Captain  Temple's  defensive 
works  at,  73. 

the  castle  defended  by  Temple,  78. 

the  bridge  held  by  Temple,  78. 

Captain  Fuller  and  Everden  in  charge 
of,  86. 

Charles  II  at,  259. 

Brambletye,  local  Committee  of  Plun- 
dered Ministers  at,  138. 
Brambletye  House,  searched,  309. 
Brede,  iron -works  at,  176. 
Bremen,  Captain,  307. 
Brent,  Sir  Nathaniel,  his  visitation,  27. 
Brentford,    the    King's    treatment    of 

prisoners  taken  at,  86. 
Brett,  Thomas  of  Cuckfield,  30. 
Brighthelmstone  (Brighton),  anciently 
a  port,  II. 

ordnance  sent  from  to  Lewes,  41. 

the  Earl  of  Thanet  embarks  at,  64. 

a  wreck  at,  153. 

unrest  at,  in  1648,  201. 

Charles  II  escapes  from,  260. 

the  Warspite  ordered  to,  269. 

importance  of  the  North  Sea  fishery 
to,  270. 

the  Dutch  fleet  off,  274. 

the  Cat  at,  279. 

dismay  at,  280. 

Ovingdean  parish  joined  to,  296. 

Colonel  Culpepper  at,  308,  315. 
Bristol  Articles  of  Surrender,  131. 
Broadbridge,  George,  266. 
Broadwater,  Waller  at,  151. 
Brockett,  Ninian,  292. 
Broughton,  Captain,  252. 
Browne,  Colonel,  second-in-command 
to  Waller  before  Chichester,  50. 

his  son  captured  at  sea,  65. 


334       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Browne,  John,  ironfounder,  176. 

examined    by  a  committee  of   the 

House,  177. 

Browne,  John,  Jan.,  177. 
Browne,  Lady,  267. 
Broyll,  the,  occupied  by  Waller,  52. 

manor  of,  sold  to  John  Downes,  56. 
Bruff,  Martha,  wife  of  Stephen,  8. 
Buckle,  the  historian,  4. 
Bunyard,  Mr.,  29. 
Burrell,  Walter,  his  furnace,  276. 
Burrells,  the,  supporters  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, 5. 

enriched  by  the  iron  industry,  9. 
Burton,  Dr.  Edward  of  Westham,  32. 

and    the    bishopric    of   Chichester, 

240. 
Burton,   Dr.    John,  his   journey  into 

Sussex,  7. 

Burton,  Lieutenant,  76. 
Bury  Hill,  the  Clubmen  at,  169. 
Busbridge,  Thomas,  member  of  Sussex 

Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 
Butler,  James,  of  London,  purchaser  of 

Amberley  Castle,  129. 
Butt,  John  of  Bosham,  133. 
Butts,  Timothy,  249. 
Buxted,  ironworks  at,  9. 
Byron,  Sir  John,  20. 

Calle,  John,  145. 

Camber  Castle,  73. 

Campion,  Henry,  134. 

Campion,  Lady,'  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas 

Parker,  193. 
Campion,  Sir  William,  sells  Lamborn 

Hall  to  Peter  Courthope,  134. 
fined  on  Borstall  Articles,  134. 
at  the  relief  of  Basing  House,  160. 
his  correspondence  with  Colonel  Mor- 

ley,  191. 

and  with  Major  Shilbourne,  193. 
killed  at  Colchester,  248. 
his  descendants,  325. 
Campions,     the,     of    Combwell    and 

Danny,  134,  193,  325. 
Car,   Mr.,   parson   of   St.    Clement's, 
Hastings,  149,  299. 


Carey,  Major  Horatio,  52. 

Carleton,  George,  Bishop  of  Chichester 

(1619-1628),  79,  301. 
Carleton,  Guy,  conspirator,  afterwards 

Bishop  of  Chichester,  301. 
Carleton,  Captain  Henry,  at  Shoreham, 

75- 

his  parentage  and  character,  79. 
member  of  Sussex  SequestratingCom- 

mittee,  123,  301. 
Carver,  Derrick,  222. 
Caryll,  Sir  John,  his  house  at  South 

Harting,  70,  120. 
Caryll,  John,  of  Harting,  fined,  1 20. 

his  estate  sequestered,  121. 
Carylls,  the,  a  Royalist  family,  4. 
enriched  by  the  iron  industry,  9. 
Cat,  the,  279,  280. 
Catre,  Captain,  52. 
Cawley,  John,  the  elder,  319. 
Cawley,  John,  the  younger,  302. 
Cawley,  William,  elected  member  for 

Midhurst,  16. 
leads    the    Parliamentary    party   at 

Chichester,  39. 

procures  guns  from  Portsmouth,  42. 
takes  flight  to  Portsmouth,  42. 
writes  to  the  Speaker  concerning  the 
Royalist  capture  of  Chichester,  43. 
his  letter  to  the  Speaker  from  Farn- 

ham,  67. 
member  of  Sequestrating  Committee 

for  Sussex,  120. 
his  interest  in  Sir  Thomas  Bowyer's 

estate,  123. 
appointed  governor  of  Cowdray 

House,  161. 
reports  the  outrageous  proceedings 

of  the  Clubmen,  169. 
writes    to    Scawen    concerning    the 
difficulty  of  raising  men  and  money, 
171. 

one  of  the  King's  judges,  219. 
signs  the  death-warrant,  220. 
member  of  the  Council  of  State, 

225. 

presents  his  son  to  the  living  of  Rother- 
field,  302. 


INDEX 


335 


Cawley,  William — contimied. 

member  for  Chichester  in  Richard 
Cromwell's  Parliament,  305. 

escapes  to  the  Continent  at  the  Re- 
storation, 317. 

his  career,  and  monument  at  Chiches- 
ter, 319. 

his  death  and  burial  at  Vevay,  320. 
"Century  of  Malignant  Priests,"  the, 

142. 

Charles  I,  conventional  ideas  concern- 
ing, 2. 

his  faults  and  virtues,  3. 

his  raising  of  ship-money,  13. 

his  misuse  of  the  navy,  14. 

his  close  connection  with  numerous 
Sussex  men,  18. 

appoints  Lunsford  to  the  Lieutenancy 
of  the  Tower,  19. 

attempts  to  arrest  the  five  members, 
20. 

leaves  London,  21. 

raises  his  standard  at  Nottingham,  33. 

his  proclamation  read  at  Chichester, 
36. 

effect  of  his  advance  towards  London, 
41. 

Hopton's  invasion  of  Sussex  a  part 
of  his  plan  of  campaign,  71. 

threatens  to  hang  prisoners,  86. 

and  the  defence  of  Basing  House, 

159- 

urged  to  advance  into  Sussex  and 

Kent,  176. 
sends    Stephen    Goffe  to  Holland, 

180. 
his  letter  to  the  Prince  of  Orange, 

181. 

his  intrigues  abroad,  182. 
his  want  of  sympathy  with  English 

national  feeling,  184. 
his  flight  from   Oxford   with   John 

Ashburnham,  186. 
his  escape    from    Hampton   Court, 

187. 

his  trial,  219. 
accompanied     to    the    scaffold    by 

Bishop  Juxon,  220. 


constitutional  change  brought  about 

by  his  death,  225. 
and  the  "  Book  of  Sports,"  230, 
his  effort  to  win  over  John  Selden, 

235- 

his  patronage  of  Thomas  May,  236. 
and  Accepted  Frewen,  239. 
and  Henry  Gage,  243. 
Charles  II,  project  of  marriage  for,  180. 
absolves  John  Ashburnham  of  alleged 

treachery,  188. 
crowned  at  Scone,  251. 
defeated  at  Worcester,  252. 
his  wanderings  and  ultimate  escape 

from  Brighthelmstone,  252  stq. 
project  for  his    landing  in  Sussex, 

296. 

his  restoration,  313. 
receives  a  deputation  of  Sussex  gentry, 

316. 

Charles,  the,  65. 
Charlton,  129. 

the  living  of,  294. 
Chate,   Thomas,    member    of   Sussex 

Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 
Chatfield,  Mr.,  preacher  at  Horsham, 

137- 

and  the  rising  at  Horsham,  199. 
Cheltenham,  the  rectory  of,  294. 
Cheynell,  Dr.  Francis,  visits  Temple  at 

Bramber,  78. 
his  characters  of  Carleton  and  Ever- 

den,  79. 

at  the  capture  of  Arundel,  103. 
his  early  career,  104. 
takes  charge  of  Chillingworth,  105. 
plies  him  with  questions,  106. 
his  conduct  atChillingworth's  funeral, 

1 08. 
member  of  Westminster  Assembly, 

137- 

obtains  the  living  of  Petworth,  139. 
post- Restoration  references  to  him, 

140. 

and  the  case  of  Mr.  Large,  144. 
Chichester,  3. 
Christopher  Lewknor  and  Sir  Wm. 

Morley,  elected  members  for,  16. 


336       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Chichester — continued. 

population  of  in  1641-2,  17. 
state  of  the  Cathedral  in  1616,  25. 
Sir  Nathaniel  Brent's  visitation  to, 

28. 

the  King's  proclamation  read  at,  36. 
flight  of  the  Mayor  from  to  York,  37. 
the  city  declares  for  the  Parliament, 

39- 

cavaliers  send  aid  to  the  garrison  at 

Portsmouth,  40. 
the  city  fortified,  42. 
cavaliers  seize  the  magazine,  42. 
letter  describing  the  proceedings  at, 

43- 

Waller  prepares  to  attack,  48. 
the  city  besieged,  52. 
surrenders  to  Waller,  53. 
treatment    of   Royalist    gentry  and 

cathedral  clergy  at,  55. 
the  Dean's  account  of  damage  done 

to  the  cathedral,  57. 
the  cathedral  library,  61. 
the  needle-makers  of,  62. 
Colonel  Anthony  Stapley,  governor 

of  the  city,  62. 

Chillingworth  removed  to,  105. 
his  death,  and  burial  in  the  cloisters 

at,  107. 

the  County  Committee  of  Sequestra- 
tion at,  1 20. 
the  County  Committee  of  Plundered 

Ministers  at,  138. 
Colonel  Stapley  ordered  to  increase 

the  garrison,  156. 

the  trained  bands  summoned  to,  162. 
Algernon  Sidney  appointed  governor, 

164. 
the  Clubmen  assemble  near  the  city, 

169. 

the  city  disgarrisoned,  173. 
Bishop  Juxon  a  native  of,  221. 
Colonel  Counter  visits  Mr.  Mansel, 

a  merchant  of  the  city,  255. 
avoided  by  Charles   II  in  his  ride 

through  Sussex,  258. 
the  parishes  of  St.  Martin  and  St. 

Andrew  united,  296. 


troops  ordered  to  in  1659,  307. 
Royalist  design  to  capture,  307. 
Major  Clarke's  company  at,  309. 
"  perverseness  "  of  in  1663,  316. 
William   Cawley's  connection  with, 

319. 

Chichester,  the  Bishop  of,  Dr.  Henry 
King,  deprived  of  his  emoluments, 
56. 

his  palace  sold  to  John  Downes,  56. 
his  estate  sequestered,  135. 
designed   for   the  Archbishopric    of 

York,  240. 

Chichester,   the  Dean  of,   Dr.  Bruno 
Reeves,   deprived    and    fined    by 
Waller,  57. 
his  account  of  the  damage  to   the 

cathedral,  57. 

compounds  on  Oxford  Articles,  135. 
Chilgrove,  129. 

the  living  of,  294. 
Chillingworth,  Dr.,  taken  prisoner  at 

Arundel,  101. 

his  birth  and  early  life,  101. 
"  a  son  of  the  Renaissance,"  102. 
unpopular  at  Court,  103. 
being  sick  is  sent  to  Chichester,  105. 
beset  by  Cheynell  and  other  Puritans, 

106. 

his  death  and  burial,  107. 
unseemly  scene  at  his  graveside,  108. 
Chiltington  Common,  74. 
Chittey,  Captain  Henry,  holds  the  maga- 
zine at  Chichester,  39. 
fortifies  the  town,  42. 
exempted  from  the  royal  pardon,  42. 
his  letter  to  the  Speaker  from  Ports- 
mouth, 43. 
Chowne,  H.,  member  for  Horsham  in 

1659,  305- 

Christian  names,  Puritan,  24. 
Clarke,  Major,  307. 
Clayton,  parish  church  of,  26. 
Cliffe,  powder  sent  to,  41. 

the  incumbent  of,  sequestered,  142. 
Clowson,  William,  212. 
Clubmen,  the  rising  of  the,  167. 
in  Sussex,  169. 


INDEX 


337 


Coach-hire  in  Sussex,  115,  210. 

Cobden  Hill,  75. 

Cockeram,  Richard,  Mayor  of  Rye,  95. 

with  Morley  at  Hastings,  149. 
Coke,  Thomas,  reveals  his  plot,  227. 
Colbrand,  Richard,  musician,  23. 
Colchester,  siege  of,  205,  248. 
Coldham,  William,  arrested  at  Chiches- 

ter  and  fined,  127. 
Collet,  Peter  van,  gunsmith,  9. 
Collidon,  Sir  John,  99. 
Collins,  Captain  Thomas,  member  of 

Sussex  Sequestrating   Committee, 

1 20. 

Colman,  Rose,  211. 
Comber,  John,  of  Donnington,  126. 
Comber,  Thomas,  240. 
Combwell,  the  Campions  of,  134,  193, 

325- 
Commission  of  Array,  the,  36. 

for  Sussex,  42,  45. 
Commissioners  for  Securing  the  Peace, 

288. 

Committee  for  Advance  of  Money,  132. 
Committee  for  Compounding,  121. 
Committee    of    Plundered    Ministers, 

136. 
Committee  for  Sequestrating  Royalists' 

Estates,  120. 
Compton,  Sir  Henry,  of  Brambletye, 

fined,  131. 
Congreve,  quoted,  concerning  wrecks 

in  Sussex,  153. 

Conyers,  Mr.,  Vicar  of  Horsham,  136. 
Cooper,  Sir  Anthony  Ashley,  160,  168. 
Cooper,    Ralph,    member    of    Sussex 

Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 
Corbett,  Mr.  John,  295. 
Cordell,  Mr.,  40. 
Corker,  the  spy,  296,  298. 
Corn,  great  rise  in  price  of,  207. 
Cornishmen  in  Hopton's  army,  88. 
Cotton,  Thomas,  arrested  for  levying 

contributions  in  Sussex,  66. 
Coulton,  Rev.  John,  Chaplain  of  the 

Rye  troop,  78. 
his  letters  to  S.  Jeake  quoted,  85,  87, 

94,  95- 


Council  of  State,  Sussex   members  of 

the,  225. 
Courthope,  Peter,  of  Isfield,  a  supporter 

of  the  parliament,  5. 
high-sheriff  of  Sussex  in  1650,  134. 
his  claim  to  Lamborn  Hall  in  Essex, 

134- 

purchases  Danny,  134. 
his  descendants,  325. 
Covert,    John    of    Slaugham,     taken 
prisoner  at  the  fall  of  Chichester, 
56. 
Covert,  Sir  W.,  his  letters  concerning 

wrecks,  153. 

Coverts,  the,  a  Royalist  family,  4. 
Cowdray  House,  great  state  kept   at, 

14. 
Hopton    puts    a    Royalist    garrison 

in,  72. 

taken  by  Waller,  82. 
stripped  of  its  contents,  83. 
sequestration  of,  131. 
its  proposed  demolition,  161. 
William  Cawley,  governor  of,  161. 
Colonel  Fagge  ordered  to  garrison, 

308. 

Cowper,  Lord  Chancellor,  6. 
Cox,  Sarah,  of  Chichester,  fined,  130. 
Cox,   Dr.    William,  fined   on    Exeter 

articles,  135. 
Craddock,  Thomas,  of  Chichester,  fined 

on  Truro  Articles,  127. 
Craven,   Lord,   his    house  in  Surrey, 

114. 
Crawford,  Earl  of,  his  Scotch  troopers 

at  Chichester,  53. 
threatens  Southampton,  66. 
some  of  his  regiment  at  South  Hart- 
ing,  70. 

leaves  his  sack  at  Alton,  90. 
Crawley,  parish  church  of,  26. 
Creswell,  Robert,  25. 
Crispe's  regiment,  66. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  exaggerated  views  of 

his  character,  2. 
Mr.  Gardiner's  estimate,  2. 
his  capture  of  Basing  House,  160. 
deals  with  the  Clubmen,  168. 


338        SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Cromwell,  Oliver — continued, 
his  letter  to  the  Speaker  concerning 

Sussex  garrisons,  172. 
his  share  in  the  New  Model,  175. 
his  argument  with  Manchester,  217. 
overrules  John  Downes  at  the  King's 

trial,  219. 

absolutism  forced  on,  225. 
consistently  supported    by   Anthony 

Stapley,  227. 
abolishes  the  grievanceof  free-quarter, 

228. 
regulates  the  position   of  disbanded 

soldiers,  230. 
the    expansion    of   England    begun 

under,  244. 

defeats  Charles  II  at  Worcester,  252. 
his  bid  for  the  world's  trade,  272. 
tradition  of  his  visits  to  Blackdown 

House,  276. 

he  "expects  conformity,"  286. 
his  treatment  of  the  Quakers,  293. 
his  dealings  with  the  "public  min- 
istry," 293. 

his  summons  to  John  Stapley,  299. 
his  death  and  funeral,  304. 
his  descendants  in  Sussex,  325. 
Cromwell,    Richard,    his    succession, 

3°4- 

his  abdication,  306. 
escapes  from  Lewes,  321. 
Crow,  Sir  Sackville,  ironfounder,  9. 
Cruso,  Dr.  Aquila,  143. 
Cuckfield,  the  vicar  of,  26. 
Cuckmere,  a  port  in  mediaeval  times, 

ii. 
Culpepper,    Colonel,    at    Brighthelm- 

stone,  308,  315. 
at  Lewes,  326. 

Culpeppers,  the,  a  Royalist  family,  4. 
Curry,  Mr.  Daniel,  295. 

Dacre,    Francis,    Lord,    his  letter    to 

Lord  Grey  of  Werke,  207. 
opposes  the  King's  trial,  208. 
his  household  at  Herstmonceux,  208. 
his  guests,  209. 
the  first  of  English  yachtsmen,  210. 


goes  abroad,  211. 

relieved  of  office   of  Vice-Admiral, 

226. 

Dallington,  the  incumbent  of,  sequest- 
ered, 142. 

Daniell,  innkeeper  of  Rye,  23. 
Danny,  the  mansion  of,  14. 

purchased  by  Peter  Courthope,  134. 

the  descent  of,  134. 

the  Campions  of,  134,  193,  325. 
Dawes,  John,  211. 
Decimation  tax,  the,  283. 
Deering,  Sir  Edward,  66. 
Denny,  Henry  and  Edward,  245. 
D'Ewes,   the   diarist,  makes  his  will, 

21. 

Didling,  the  living  of,  294. 
Digby,  Lord,  176. 

his  correspondence  captured,  182. 
Disbanded  soldiers,  the  hard  case  of, 

230. 

Ditchling,  49. 
Dives,  Sir  Lewis,  168. 
Dixie,  Colonel,  at  Arundel,  88. 
Dod,  widow,  86. 
Donnington  Castle,  172. 
Dorset,  Earl  of,  20,  32,  188. 
Dorsetshire,   Sussex   troops    employed 

in,  1 60. 

Dover,  the,  built  at  Shoreham,  277. 
Downes,  John,  purchases  the  palace  at 

Chichester,  56. 
member  of  Sussex  SequestratingCom- 

mittee,  120. 

patron  of  the  living  of  Cowfold,  144. 
regicide,  his  conduct  at  the  King's 

trial,  221. 

his  dispute  with  John  Fry,  224. 
member  of  Council  of  State,  309. 
his  trial  and  condemnation,  317. 
Dragon,  fable   of  a,  in  St.   Leonard's 

Forest,  7. 

Drayton,  his  lament  over  the  destruc- 
tion of  timber,  10. 
Dumbrell,  John,  the  wife  of,  27. 
Duncton.     See  Runcton. 
Dusseville,  Bonaventure,  62. 
Dyke,  William,  of  Frant,  297. 


INDEX 


339 


Eager,  Stephen,  292. 

Eastbourne  Place,  searched  for  papers, 

300. 
East  Dean,  129. 

the  living  of,  294. 
Eastergate,  Clubmen  from,  170. 
East  Grinstead,  Assizes  held  at,  7. 
the  incumbent  of,  sequestered,  142. 
the  living  augmented,  295. 
Edmonds,  Thomas,  208. 
Edsawe,  Rev.  John,  of  Chayley,  fined 

on  Oxford  Articles,  136. 
Edward  the  Confessor,  and  the  Sussex 

ports,  10. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  at  Cowdray,  14. 
Elsmore,  Captain,  307. 
Engagement,  the,  of  1650,  226. 
Erie,  Sir  William,  67. 
Essex,    Earl   of,    complains    of   their 

weakness  in  cavalry,  35. 
grants  commission  as  Major-General 

to  Waller,  91. 

Evelyn,  John,  his  father's  estate,  15. 
his  views  of  Dutch  diplomacy,  183. 
his  visit  to  Rye,  266. 
at  the  Protector's  funeral,  304. 
endeavours  to  persuade  Morley  to  re- 
store Charles  II,  313. 
procures  Morley's  pardon,  314. 
and   the  Sussex  gentry's  address  to 

Charles  II,  316. 

Everden     (or     Everenden),     Captain 
Walter,    Cheynell's   character   of, 

79- 

left  in  charge  of  Bramber,  86. 
member    of    Sussex     Sequestrating 

Committee,  120. 
and  the  manufacture  of  gunpowder, 

277. 

one  of  Goffe's  commissioners,  288. 
Everden,  Mr.,  of  Lewes,  275. 
Eversfield,    Sir   Thomas,   member    of 
Sussex   Sequestrating   Committee, 
1 20. 

his  own  estate  sequestered,  120. 
Excise,  levied  on  goods  of  all  kinds, 

205. 
Exeter  Articles  of  Surrender,  131,  135. 


Exton,  Robert,   Mayor  of  Chichester, 

36. 
fined,  130. 

Fagge,  Colonel  John,  a  commissioner 

to  try  the  King,  219. 
his  reliance  on  Colonel  Morley,  288, 

290. 

member  for  the  county  in  1659,  305. 
in  command  of  Sussex  Militia,  307. 
governor  of  Portsmouth,  313. 
created  a  baronet,  315. 
his  descendants,  325. 
Fairfax,   Sir    T.,    pleads    for   Colonel 

Gounter  and  others,  126. 
and  the  New  Model,  163,  174. 
petition  to  concerning  free-quarter, 

165. 

and  the  Clubmen,  167. 
difficulty  of  raising  men  for  in  Sussex, 

171. 

Commander-in-Chief,  1 75. 
Families,  division  of,  in  the  Civil  War, 

190. 

Farley,  Rev.  John,  of  Clayton,  26. 
Farrenden  (or   Farnden),  Peter,  iron- 
master, 241,  275. 
Farrington,  John,  127. 
Fecamp  Abbey,  1 1 . 
Fenwick,  Major,  288. 
Ferrers,  Samuel,  177. 
Filder,  Edward,  222. 
Finch,  SirJ.,  241. 
Findon,  Cavaliers  at,  85. 
Ford,  Sir  Edward,  raises  troop  of  horse, 

34. 

High  Sheriff,  42. 
seizes  Chichester,  42. 
his  arrest  ordered  by  Parliament,  47. 
defeated  at  Hayward's  Heath,  49. 
neglects  defence  of  Arundel,  51. 
besieged  by  Waller  at  Chichester,  52. 
surrenders  the  city,  53. 
sent  prisoner  to  London,  55. 
endeavours  to  raise  troops  in  Sussex, 

66. 

commands  a  regiment  of  horse  under 
Hopton,  72. 


340       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Ford,  Sir  Edward — continued. 

captures  Arundel,  72. 

besieged  by  Waller,  86. 

surrenders  the  castle,  93. 

his  subsequent  career,  97. 

"a  chief  delinquent,"  158. 

his  interest  with  Cromwell  through 
his  brother-in-law  Ireton,  191. 

visited  by  Thomas  Coke,  228. 
Ford,  Sir  William,  with  his  son  Edward 
at  Chichester,  45. 

taken  prisoner,  55. 

his  residence,  Up  Park,  70. 

petitions  Parliament,  97. 
Fords,  "some  of  the,"  170. 
Foster,  Mr.  Thos.,  299. 
Fowles,  the,  enriched  by  the  iron  in- 
dustry, 9. 

Fox,  George,  visits  Sussex,  292. 
Fox,  William,  of  Hailsham,  2J. 
Fray,  Jurat  of  Hastings,  149. 
Free-quarter,   the  grievance  of,  abol- 
ished by  Cromwell,  228. 
Freeman,  Captain  William,  197. 

member  for  Horsham  in  1659,  305. 

one  of  GofTe's  commissioners,  288. 
Frewen,  Accepted,  19. 

eldest  son  of   Rev.  John  Frewen, 
24. 

his  early  career,  239. 

Archbishop  of  York,  240. 
Frewen,  Benjamin,  240. 
Frewen,  Rev.  John,  rector  of  Northiam, 
threatened  by  John  Snepp,  24. 

indicted  for  non-conformity,  25. 

proceeds  against  Robert  Creswell  for 
insulting  him,  25. 

his  epitaph,  238. 

his  descendants,  325. 
Frewen,  Stephen,  239. 
Frewen,  Thankfull,  24. 
Frottier,  John,  62. 
Fuller,  Captain,  75. 

left  in  charge  of  Bramber,  86. 
Fullers,  the,  enriched  by  the  iron  in- 
dustry, 9. 
Funtington,  295. 
Fursby,  John,  292. 


Gage,  Sir  Edward,  131. 
Gage,  Sir  Henry,  soldier  of  fortune,  his 
early  career,  242. 

governor  of  Oxford,  19,  243. 

relieves  Basing  House,  160. 
Gage,  Sir  Thomas,  ofFirle,  131. 
Gage,   Thomas,    his  romantic  career, 

243- 

Gage,  William,  of  Framfield,  131. 
Gages,  the,  a  Royalist  family,  4. 
Galloway,  Ambrose  and  Elizabeth,  291. 
Geers,  the,  of  Ovingdean,  262. 
Gerard,  Sir  George,  182. 
Gerard,  Lord,  228. 
Gibbons,  Major,  ordered  to  Horsham, 

198. 

defeats  Norton  at  Rye,  204. 
in  command  of  troops  at  Rye,  307, 

310. 

Gildridge,  Mr.  Nic.,  299. 
Gilliat,   Lewis,   and   his   son   Claude, 

269. 

Glemham,  Sir  Thomas,  186. 
Glynde,  civil  marriages  at,  286. 

the  descent  of,  325. 
Godalming,  Waller's  soldiers  at,  68. 
Godfrey,  Francis,  of  Rye,  23. 
Goffe,  John,  son  of  the  rector  of  Stan- 

mer,  180. 
Goffe,  Mr.  Richard,  incumbent  of  East 

Grinstead,  sequestered,  143. 
at  Rotherfield,  147. 
Goffe,  Rev.  Stephen,  rector  of  Stan- 

mer,  179. 

Goffe,  Stephen,  D.D.,  19. 
eldest  son  of  the  rector  of  Stanmer, 

180. 

his  early  life,  1 80. 
sent  to  Holland  by  the  King,  181. 
failure  of  his  negotiations,  184. 
his  subsequent  career,  184. 
Goffe,  William,  son  of  the  rector  of 

Stanmer,  179. 

signs  the  King's  death-warrant,  220. 
Major-General    of   Sussex,    Hamp- 
shire, and  Berkshire,  283. 
arrives  at  Lewes,  284. 
and  Colonel  Morley,  285. 


INDEX 


Goffe,  William — continued. 
his  Commissioners  for  Securing  the 

Peace,  288. 
exempted  from  the  Act  of  Indemnity, 

320. 

escapes  to  America,  320. 
Goldsmiths'   Hall,   the  Committee  at, 

121. 
Goring,  Charles,  succeeds  his  father  as 

Earl  of  Norwich,  250. 
Goring,  Diana,  wife  of  Henry,  92. 
Goring,  George,  of  Ovingdean,  son  of 
Sir   William   Goring,   of  Burton, 
245. 
Goring,    George,    Lord,   governor    of 

Portsmouth,  37. 
intrigues  with  both  parties,  37. 
declares  for  the  King,  38. 
surrenders  on  terms,  40. 
his  designs  on  Sussex,  162. 
his  reputation  for  plundering,  167. 
in  Paris,  183. 

his  career  during  the  war,  246. 
Clarendon's  view  of  his  character,  37, 

246. 

his  service  and  death  in  Spain,  249. 
Goring,  George,  Earl  of  Norwich,  his 

part  in  the  Civil  War,  37. 
his  estate  of  Danny,  134,  245,  249. 
relations  with  the  Queen,  183. 
his  connection  with  Anthony  Stapley, 

191. 

at  the  siege  of  Colchester,  193,  248. 
his-  mother,   Anne   Denny,    228  «., 

245- 
ambassador  for  the  King  to  France, 

246. 

his  letter  to  Lady  Campion,  248. 
tried  for  high  treason,  249. 
Goring,  John,  of  Amberley,  129. 
Goring,    Sir   W.,   member   of   Sussex 

Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 
Gorings,  the,  of  Burton,  supporters  of 

the  Parliament,  5. 
Gorings,   the,   of   Danny,   a   Royalist 

family,  4. 
Gott,  Samuel,  241. 
Goulding,  Captain,  51. 


Counter  (or  Gunter),  Colonel  George, 

of  Rackton,  at  Chichester,  45. 
taken  prisoner  by  Waller,  56. 
compounds  on  Truro  Articles,  126. 
arrested  at  Chichester,  127. 
and  Coke's  plot,  228. 
his  narrative  of  Charles  II's  escape, 

253- 
his  family  rewarded,  261. 

Gounter  (or  Gunter),  Captain  Thomas, 

at  Chichester,  45. 
taken  prisoner  by  Waller,  56. 
and  Charles  II,  254. 

Gratwick,  James,  sequestrator  of  Hors- 
ham  vicarage,  137. 

Gratwick,  Roger,  abstains  from  sitting 
at  the  King's  trial,  219. 

Gratwick,  William,  of  Torton,  328. 

Gratwicks,  the,  supporters  of  the  Par- 
liament, 5. 
enriched  by  the  iron  industry,  9. 

Graves,  Mr.,  299. 

Graves,  Sackville,  303,  308. 

Gravetye,  the  mansion  of,  14. 

Greenwood,  Mr. ,  preacher  at  Rye,  23. 

Gregory,  Rev.  John,  57. 

Gresham,  James,  37. 

Grey  of  Werke,  Lord,  100,  207. 

Gyles,  Mr.,  29. 

Haberdashers'  Hall,  the  Committee  at, 

133- 
Hall,  Edmund,  of  Lullington,  27. 

Hall,  Mr.,  299. 

Halnaker,  the  mansion  of,  258. 

Halsey,  Mr.,  rector  of  East  Dean,  140. 

Hampton  Court,  the  King  at,  187. 

Hangleton,  horse-race  at,  232. 

Harbours,  decay  of  Sussex,  II. 

Harley,  Sir  Robert,  67. 

Harlow,  Sir  Robert,  133. 

Harsnett,  Bishop,  his  interrogatories  to 

the  Chapter  of  Chichester,  25. 
Harting,  Hop  ton  at,  71. 
HartingPlacegarrisoned  byHopton,72. 
Harting,  South,  population  of,  in  1641, 

1 8. 
a  fight  at,  69. 


342       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Haselrig,    Sir     Arthur,    with    Waller 

before  Chichester,  52. 
takes  part  in  the  spoliation   of  the 

cathedral,  57. 

revisits  Chichester  in  1647,  60. 
his  troops  and  free-quarter,  166. 
acts  with  Morley  in  London  and  at 

Portsmouth,  311. 

Haslemere,  occupied  by  Waller,  82. 
Hastings,  shipment  of  "  billets  "  from, 

10. 

destruction  of  the  pier  at,  II. 
rated  for  ship-money,  14. 
Colonel  Morley  at,  148. 
Ashburnham  holds  a  barque  in  readi- 
ness at,  1 88. 
the    Marquis    of   Ormonde   escapes 

from,  1 88. 
a  clerk  of  the  passage  appointed  at, 

188. 
importance  of  the  North  Sea  Fishery 

to,  270. 

the  Dutch  fleet  off,  274. 
port  of  shipment  for  iron-shot,  275. 
the  Cat  ordered  to  protect  the  fisher- 
men of,  279. 
the   True  Love    frigate,    to    do   the 

same,  280. 
dismay  of,  at  the  capture  of  the  Cat, 

280. 
Havant,  Waller  advances  by,  50. 

Hopton  retires  towards,  91. 
Hay,  Herbert,  of  Glyndbourne,  mem- 
ber of  Sussex  Sequestrating  Com- 
mittee, 1 20. 

appointed  Deputy-Lieutenant,  156. 
and  Major-General  Goffe,  288. 
Hay  of   Glyndbourne,    a    Roundhead 

family,  5. 

Hayes,  Mr.,  Justice  of  the  Peace,  31. 
Hayne,  of  Brighthelmstone,  64. 
Hayward's  Heath,  fight  at,  48. 
Head,  Colonel,  at  Arundel,  88. 
Heath,  Robert,  his  two  sons  at  Chi- 
chester, 45. 
Heathfield,  124. 
Heaves,  John,  27. 
Heene,  the  St.  James  stranded  at,  151. 


Henchman,  Dr.,  254. 
Henley,  Captain,  269. 
Henrietta  Maria,  Queen,  urges  Charles 
to  attempt  the  arrest  of  the  five 
members,  3. 
sends  Ford  to  discover  the  aims  of 

the  army,  98. 
Chillingworth  accused  of  being  her 

spy,  105. 
Cheynell's    view    of  her    influence, 

106. 

her  intrigues  with  Mazarin,  182. 
her  strained  relations  with  the  Gor- 

ings,  183. 

Stephen  Goffe  her  chaplain,  184. 
Henshaw,  Rev.   Dr.,    Canon   of  Chi- 
chester, 39. 

fined  on  Exeter  Articles,  135. 
Herstmonceux    Castle,  the   household 

accounts  of,  207. 
Hewitt,  Dr.,  and  the  plot  of  1658,  296. 

tried  and  executed,  302. 
Higgons,  Captain  Edward,  parliament- 
ary leader  at  Chichester,  42. 
his  letter  to  the  Speaker  from  Ports- 
mouth, 43. 
placed  in  charge  of  the  contents  of 

Cowdray  House,  83. 
member     of    Sussex     Sequestrating 

Committee,  120. 

Hill,  Rev.  Mr. ,  vicar  of  Felpham,  28. 
Hinson,  Mr.,  curate    of   All    Saints', 

Hastings,  149. 
Hippesley,  Tom,  249. 
Hoadley,   Bishop,    on    Dr.    Cheynell, 

140. 
Hoge,  or  Hogge,  Ralph,  ironfounder, 

9- 

Holland,  William,    of  West    Burton, 
189. 

Holies,  leader  of  the  Dorset  Clubmen, 
167. 

Honeywood,  Lieutenant,  200. 

Hooke,  Rev.  Thomas,  fined,  136. 

Hopkins,  Lieut.,  300. 

Hopton,  Lord,   his   forces   in  Hamp- 
shire, 69. 
advances  into  Sussex,  71. 


INDEX 


343 


Hopton,  Lord — continued. 
captures    Stanstead,    Cowdray,   and 

Arundel,  72. 
leaves  Ford  in  command  of  Arundel 

Castle,  84. 
dissensions   at   his  head-quarters  at 

Winchester,  88. 
marches  to  attack  Waller  at  Arundel, 

89. 
being  outnumbered  retires  to  Havant, 

91. 

besieges  Warblington  Castle,  92. 
writes  concerning  Waller's  advance, 

95- 

Chillingworth  takes  refuge  with,  103. 
Horsemonden,  ironworks  at,  176. 
Horses,  export  of,  from  Rye,  268. 
Horsham,  assizes  sometimes  held  at,  7. 
a  fabulous  monster  near,  7. 
population  of,  in  1641-2,  17. 
Colonel  Apsley's  ride  to,  74. 
Thomas  Middleton,  M.P.  for,  80. 
petition  of,  for  removal  of  Mr.  Con- 

yers,  minister,  136. 
Mr.  Chatfield,  lecturer  at,  137. 
affray  at  Nuthurst  near,  166. 
rising  at,  197. 
letter    from,    describing    events  at, 

198. 
captured    by  Sir   Michael    Livesay, 

2OI. 

punishment  of  those  concerned,  202. 
Collyer's  School  at,  241. 
Quakers  in  gaol  at,  292. 
Horsted  Parva,  the  rector  of,  seques- 
tered, 142. 
Houghton  Bridge,  Charles  II  crosses, 

259- 

Hounds,  export  of,  from  Rye,  268. 
Hounsell,  Mark,  204. 
Howard,  Mr.  Henry,  228. 
Howsell,  Anne,  8. 
Hudson,  Dr.,  186. 
Humanity,  the,  with  which  the  Civil 

War  was  conducted,  89. 
Hurst,  49. 

Hurstpierpoint,  manor  of,  24$,  249. 
Hussey,  George,  292. 


Hutchinson,  George,  of  Cuckfield,  at 

Hangleton  race,  232. 
concerned  in  Stapley's  plot,  297. 

Ifield,  Quaker  meeting  at,  291. 

George  Fox  at,  292. 
Independents,  the,  principles  of,  175. 
Ireton,    his    connection    with    Sir    E. 

Ford,  53,  97. 

Irishmen  in  Hopton's  army,  88. 
Ironworks,  the  Sussex,  of  national  im- 
portance, 8. 
number  of  furnaces  and  forges  at  the 

time  of  the  Civil  War,  9. 
occasion  great  destruction  of  timber, 

10. 
the  works    in    St.   Leonard's  forest 

captured  by  Waller,  94. 
importance  of,   to    the    Parliament, 

96,  175- 

the  Brownes  of  Brede  and  Horse- 
monden, 35,  175. 

output  of  guns,  etc.,  for  the  army 
and  navy,  176. 

activity  of,   during  the  Dutch  war, 

275- 
visit  of  Thomas  Newberry  to,  275. 

Jeake,  Samuel,  of  Rye,  78. 

and  the  Rye  petition  to  Fairfax,  214. 
Jenner,  Captain  Thomas,  288. 
Jennings,  Rev.  Mr.,  inhibited,  29. 
Jermyn,  Lord,  his  correspondence  with 

Stephen  Goffe,  181. 
Jerome,  a  Frenchman,  65. 
Jones,  Edward,  senior  and  junior,  of 

Rye,  the  wives  of,  27. 
Jones,  Mr.,  of  Brecon,  305. 
Juxon,  John,  citizen  of  London,  221. 
Juxon,  John,  of  Albourne  Place,  223. 

created  a  baronet,  315. 
Juxon,  Richard,  of  Chichester,  221. 
Juxon,  Thomas,  221. 
Juxon,  William,  Bishop  of  London,  19. 

accompanies  the  King  to  the  scaffold, 

221. 

a  native  of  Chichester,  221. 
his  early  career,  222. 


344       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Juxon,  William,  Bishop  of  London — 

continued. 
tradition  of  his  concealment  at  Al- 

bourne  Place,  223. 
appointed  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 

at  the  Restoration,  224. 
patron  of  John  Selden,  234. 

Keely,  Captain,  59. 

Kemp,  Sir  Garrett,  of  Slindon,  fined, 

131- 

his  journey  to  Spa,  132. 
Kemp,  Thomas,  fined,  132. 
Key,  William,  shipowner  of  Rye,  269, 

287. 

Killingbeck,  Humphrey,  291. 
King,    Dr.    Henry.      See    Chichester, 

Bishop  of. 

King,  John,  the  bishop's  son,  45. 
King,  Philip,  the  bishop's  brother,  45. 
Kingly  Bottom,  257. 
Kirkford,  population  of,  in  1641-2,  18. 
Knight,  Mr.,  74. 
Knowles,  Richard,  288. 

Lambert,  his  encounter  with  Morley, 

3". 

Large,   Rev.  John,  Rector  of  Rother- 

field,  30. 

the  case  of  his  sequestration,  144. 
his  able  defence,  145. 

Laud,  Archbishop,  28. 

Lawrence,    Henry,   his  letter    to    the 

Justices  of  Sussex,  286. 
his  instructions  concerning  Quakers, 
292. 

Lawcock,  Thomas,  291. 

Lawson,  Thomas,  291. 

Lechford,  Sir  Richard,  51. 

Leeds,  Thomas,  M.P.  for  Steyning, 
expelled  from  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 43. 

Captain  of  the  horse    for    Arundel 
Rape,  45. 

Legge,  William,   187,  190. 

Leighton,  Captain,  74. 

Livesay,  Sir  Michael,  joins  Waller  be- 
fore Chichester,  52. 


at  Arundel,  87. 
takes  Horsham,  222. 
Lewes,  shipment  of  iron  from,  9. 
Herbert  Morley  elected  member  for, 

1 6. 

Protestant  martyrs  at,  22. 
proceedings  in  Archdeaconry  Court 

at,  26. 
Sir  Nathaniel  Brent  holds  a  visitation 

at,  29. 

Anthony  Stapley's  influence  at,  31. 
order  for  providing  for  safety  of  town 

of,  40. 

ordnance  sent  to,  41. 
Sir  Edward  Ford  marches  to  attack, 

48. 
letter  to  the  Speaker  from   Colonel 

Morley  at,  64. 
the  Committee  at,  inform  Parliament 

of  the  Royalist  invasion,  73. 
a  present  sent  to  Waller  from,  94. 
local  Committee  of  Plundered  Minis- 
ters at,  138. 
John    Aylwine,    collector    for     the 

Parliament  at,  156. 
Sir  Thos.  Pelham  writes  to  the  House 

from,    concerning    the    rising    at 

Horsham,  198. 
Captain   Shephard   retires  to,  from 

Horsham,  200. 
letter  from,   concerning  the  Dutch 

depredations,  274. 
Mr.  Everden,  ironmaster,  of,  275. 
Major-General  Goffe  at,  284. 
John    and    Anthony    Stapley     the 

younger  at,  285. 
one    Rose    of,  suspected    a  papist, 

287. 

Quakers  at,  287. 
activity  of  Anthony  Stapley  in  the 

Royalist  plot  at,  297. 
"  perverseness  "  of,  in  1663,  316. 
Richard  Cromwell  and  Edmund  Lud- 

low  escape  from,  321. 
a  fracas  at,  326. 
Lewknor,    Christopher,    member    for 

Chichester,  16. 
Recorder  of  Chichester,  39. 


INDEX 


345 


Lewknor,  Christopher — continued. 
arranges  terms  of  surrender  at  Ports- 
mouth, 40. 

expelled  from  the   House  of   Com- 
mons, 43. 

made  prisoner  by  Waller,  56. 
Lewknor,  Frey,  129. 
Lewknor,  John,  the  hard  case  of;  his 

estate  sequestered,  128. 
livings  augmented  by,  294. 
Lewknor,  Mary,  fined,  129. 
Lewknor,  Thomas,  of  Amberley,  fined, 

129. 

Lewknor,  Mr. ,  and  Coke's  plot,  228. 
Lieutenancy  of  the  Tower,    Lunsford 

appointed  to  the,  19. 
Morley  appointed  to  the,  312. 
Lindsay,  Captain,  52. 
Livings,  augmentation  of,  294. 
Lorraine,  the  Duke  of,  182,  184. 
Ludlow,  Edmund,  escapes  from  Lewes, 

321. 

Lumley,  John,  131. 
Lumley,  Viscount,  fined,  131. 

and  Coke's  plot,  228. 
Lunsford,    Sir    Herbert,    accompanies 

the  King  from  London,  21. 
commands  a  regiment,  245. 
Lunsford,  Sir  Thomas,  appointed  Lieu- 
tenant of  the  Tower,  19. 
his  early  career,  19. 
dismissed  and  knighted,  20. 
accompanies  the  King  from  London, 

21. 
admitted  to  compound  for  his  estate, 

130- 

popular  beliefs  concerning,  244. 
his  later  career,  245. 
Lunsfords,  the,  a  Royalist  family,  4. 
Lyme,  pier-builders  from,  II. 

Madgwick,  Captain  Edward,  288. 
Major-Generals,  the,  283. 
Mallory,  Captain  Henry,  at   Hangle- 
ton  race,  232. 

and  the  plot  of  1658,  297. 

his  trial,  302. 
Manning,  Richard,  288. 


Mansel,  Francis,  his  part  in   Charles 

II's  escape,  255. 
Samuel  Pepys'  account  of,  262. 
Marden,  Hopton  at,  71. 
Marian  persecution,  the,  22. 
Markwick,  Mr.  Will,  299. 
Marlett,  William,  222. 
Marriages  before  a  Justice  of  the  Peace, 

286. 
Marshall,    Thomas,    Mayor    of   Rye, 

310. 
May,   Thomas,   the  poet:    his    birth, 

career,  and  untimely  death,  237. 
May,  Thomas,  of  Rawmere,  4,  15. 
expelled  from  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 43. 
at  Chichester,  45. 
made  prisoner  by  Waller,  56. 
compounds  for  his  estate,  123. 
Mayfield,  237. 
Maynard,  Mr.  John,  Puritan    divine, 

29,  137. 

Mazarin,  Cardinal,  182. 
Merston,  295. 
Michelbourne,  William,  patron  of  Hor- 

sted  Keynes,  212. 
his  wife  Anne,  212. 
Michelbourne,  William  and  Thomas, 

supporters  of  the  Parliament,  $• 
appointed  Deputy- Lieutenants,  156. 
Michell,  Edward,  292. 
Michell,  John,  of  Stammerham,  222. 
Michell,  Thomas,  222. 
Middleton,  Lieut. -General  John,  271. 
Middleton,  Thomas,  member  for  Hors- 

ham,   16. 

articles  formulated  against,  80. 
scare  in  London  caused  by,  80. 
member  of  Sussex  Sequestrating 

Committee,  120. 
sequestrator  of  Horsham    vicarage, 

137- 

appointed  Deputy-Lieutenant,  156. 

arrested  and  sent  to  London,  202. 

his  estate  sequestered,  but  finally  re- 
stored, 203. 

regarded  as  possible  Royalist  con- 
spirator, 228. 


346        SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Midhurst,  population  of  in  1641-2,  18. 
Waller's  troops  at,  67,  82. 
the  living  augmented,  295. 
Mildmay,  Henry,  313. 
Militia  ordinance,  the,  36. 
Mills,  John,  133. 
Milnes,  Mr.,  299. 
Monk,  General,  311,  313. 
Montagu,  Admiral,  311. 
Montague,   Lord,  one  of  his  servants 

apprehended,  64. 
his  estate  sequestered,  131. 
a  visitor  at  Herstmonceux,  209. 
Montague,  Mr.,  takes  Colonel  Apsley 

prisoner,  77. 

Montreuil,  the  French  ambassador,  187. 
Mordaunt,  John,  302. 
More,  Sir  Poynings,  37. 
Morley,  Colonel  Herbert,  of  Glynde, 

parliamentarian,  5. 
Member  of  Parliament  for  Lewes, 

1640,  1 6. 

raises  troops  of  horse,  34. 
his  influence  in  East  Sussex,  40. 
entrusted  by  the  House  with  the  de- 
fence of  the  county,  40. 
exempted  from  the  King's  proclama- 
tion of  pardon,  42. 
at  the  siege  of  Chichester,  52. 
writes  to   the    Speaker    concerning 

Sussex  affairs,  64. 
at  Farnham,  66. 
defence   of  East   Sussex  by  against 

Lord  Hopton,  73. 
at  the  siege  of  Arundel,  87. 
joint    governor   of  Arundel   Castle, 

95- 

member  of  Sussex  Sequestra  ting  Com- 
mittee, 1 20. 

at  Hastings,  148. 

his  letter  to  the  Speaker  as  to  the 
picture  found  in  the  Si.  James, 

'S3- 

in  command  of  the  besiegers  of  Basing 
House,  158. 

his  correspondence  with  Lord  Win- 
chester, 159. 

wounded  in  the  shoulder,  159. 


his  motto,  1 60. 

instructed  to  prepare  for  the  defence 

of  Cowdray,   Arundel,   and   Chi- 
chester, 161. 

suppresses  the  Clubmen,  169. 
his    friendly    correspondence    with 

Sir  William  Campion,  191. 
endeavours  to  remove  the  magazine 

of  Horsham  to  Arundel,  197. 
a  Commissioner  to  try  the  King,  219. 
declines  to  sign  the  death-warrant, 

219. 

"  almost  a  malcontent,"  227. 
assists  John  Evelyn  at  Rye,  266. 
procures  a  frigate  to  protect  the  Rye 

fishing  fleet,  271. 
inquires    into    Middleton's    escape, 

272. 

visited  by  Major-General  Goffe,  285. 
his  local  activity,  286. 
his  "terrible  fit  of  gout,"  290. 
returns  to  politics  after  Oliver's  death, 

SOS- 

admiralty  commissioner,  306. 

a  commissioner  for  the  army,  311. 

forcibly  resists  Lambert,  311. 

retires  to  Portsmouth,  312. 

marches   on  London  with  Haselrig 
and  Walton,  312. 

Lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  312. 

urged  by  John    Evelyn  to  bring  in 
Charles  II,  312. 

fined  and  pardoned  at  the  Restora- 
tion, 314. 

his  character,  314. 

perhaps    assisted    Ludlow's    escape 

from  Lewes,  321. 
Morley,  Sir  John,  at  Chichester,  44. 

made  prisoner  by  Waller,  55. 

obtains  a  protection  order  on  pay- 
ment of  a  fine,  55,  120. 

compounds  for  his  estate,  123. 
Morley,  Captain  William,  his  rendez- 
vous with  Colonel  Apsley,  75. 

disperses  the  Clubmen,  169. 

Charles  II  avoids  encountering,  259. 
Morley,  Sir  William,  of  Halnaker,  4. 

his  origin,  15. 


INDEX 


347 


Morley,    Sir  William,    of  Halnaker — 

continued. 

member  for  Chichester,  16. 
at  Chichester,  39,  45. 
expelled  from  the  House  of  Commons, 

43- 

made  prisoner  by  Waller,  55. 
the  treatment  of  his  estate,  63. 
Moore,  Rev.  Giles,  rector  of  Horsted 

Keynes,  extracts  from  his  journal, 

211. 

Mowbray,  Lord,  50. 
Moyle,  Mr.,  of  Cornwall,  80. 
Mullet,  John,  287. 
Mundham,  North,  123. 

Navy,  the,  value  to  the  Parliament  of 

its  adherence,  264. 
Naylor,  John,  of  Slaugham,  27. 
Naylor,  Mr.,  a  clergyman,  299. 
Needle-makers,  ruin  of,  at  Chichester, 

61. 

Netherway,  Mr.,  125. 
Nevill,   Edward,    Lord  Abergavenny, 

246. 

Nevilles,  the,  enriched  by  the  iron  in- 
dustry, 9. 

New  Burgh  (Hastings),  10. 
New  Model,  the,  36. 

Sussex  contribution  to,  163. 
the  basis  of,  1 74. 
Newberry,  Thomas,  275. 
Newbury,  battle  of,  its  effect  on  Sussex, 

161. 
Sussex  troops  for    the   garrison  at, 

172. 

Newcomb,  Mr.,  141. 
Newhaven,  shipment  of  iron  from,  9. 
ordnance  removed  from,  41. 
trade  in  arms  with  Weymouth,  65. 
French  troops  to  land  at,  183. 
shipping  belonging  to,  310. 
Newport,  Earl  of,  20. 
North  Marden  Down,  91. 
Northampton,  Earl  of,   Lord  Warden 

of  the  Cinque  Ports,  8. 
a  search  for,  309. 
Northiam,  24,  238. 


Northumberland,  Algernon  Percy,  Earl 

of,  "  the  proudest  man  alive,"  4. 
his  great  losses,  206. 
Lord  High  Admiral,  264. 
Norton,  Colonel,  takes  Southsea  Castle, 

40. 

at  South  Harting,  70. 
attacks  Cavaliers  near  Havant,  91. 
at  the  siege  of  Basing  House,  158. 
and  the  Clubmen,  169. 
his  warning  to  Sussex,  171. 
Norton,  Mr.,  churchwarden  of  Rye,  29. 
Norton,  Major  Anthony,  his  rising  at 

Rye,  203. 
charged  with  using  scandalous  words, 

204. 
Norton,  Sir  Gregory,  signs  the  King's 

death-warrant,  220. 
Norton,    Sir    Richard,   his    house   at 

Rotherfield,  164. 
Nottingham,  Lord,  209. 
Nuthurst,  affray  at,  166. 

Quaker  meeting  at,  291. 
Nutt,  Mr.  John,  incumbent  of  Bexhill, 

sequestered,  143. 
Nye,    Philip,    independent    preacher, 

241. 

Nye,  Rev.  Mr.,  rector  of  Clapham,  28, 
137,  241. 

Oglander,  George,  member  of  Sussex 

Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 
Older,  Nathan,  Mayor  of  Arundel,  96. 
Orange,    the    Prince    of,    letter   from 

Charles  to,  181. 
his  negotiations  with  Stephen  Goffe, 

182. 

his  children,  183. 
his  views  on  sea-power,  264. 
Ormonde,  Marquis  of,  his  escape  from 

Hastings,  188. 
escapes  again  from  the  Sussex  coast, 

303- 

Osborne,  Edward,  at  Chichester,  45. 
Oughtred,  Dr.  William,  135. 
Ovingdean    Grange,    the    legend    of, 

262. 
Oxenden,  Henry,  241. 


348        SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Oxford  Articles  of  Surrender,  126. 
include  dispensation  from  taking  the 

covenant,  135. 
Oxford,  the  King's  flight  from,  186. 

Pagham,  a  port   in  mediaeval  times, 
n. 

the  protestation  return  from,  17. 
Parker,  Henry,  238. 
Parker,  Sir  Thomas,  of  Ratton,  charged 
with  the  defence  of  Sussex,  42. 

accused  of  disaffection,  161. 

his  daughter,  Lady  Campion,  193. 
Partridge,  Sir  Edward,  112. 
Patcham,  Stapley's  house  at,  297. 
Patching,  Thomas,  292. 
Payne,  James,  of  Eastbourne,  27. 
Pearse,  William,  203. 
Peckham,  Mr.,  vicar  of  Horsted  Parva, 

139. 

sequestered,  142. 

Peckham,   Mr.,  a  leader  of  the  Club- 
men, 170. 
Pelham,  H.,  member  for  Chichester  in 

1659.  305- 
Pelham,   Peregrine,   signs   the   King's 

death-warrant,  220. 
Pelham,  Sir  Thomas,  member  for  the 

county,  1 6. 

beset  by  Thomas  Lunsford,  19. 
charged  with  the  defence  of  Sussex, 

42. 

his  letter  to  the  Speaker,  66. 
member  of  Sussex  Sequestrating  Com- 
mittee, 1 20. 

accused  of  disaffection,  161. 
informs  the  Speaker  of  the  rising  at 

Horsham,  198. 
his  descendants,  325. 
Pelhams,  the,  supporters  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, 5. 

enriched  by  the  iron  industry,  9. 
Pell,  John,  mathematician  and  diplo- 
matist, 241. 

Pellet,  John,  of  Arundel,  326. 
Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  Earl  of, 

201. 
Penington,  Isaac,  no. 


Penn,  Springet,  HI. 
Penruddock's  rising,  282. 
Petersfield,  Hopton  at,  71,  89. 
Petitions   to   Parliament   of  February 
1642,  18. 

from  Surrey  and  Sussex  in  1648,  196. 

from  Rye  to  Fairfax,  215. 
Petre,  Lord,  arrested,  308. 
Petworth,  population  of  in  1641-2,  17. 

Cavalier  raid  on,  69. 

garrisoned  by  Hopton,  72. 

Clubmen  from,  170. 
Petworth,  the  living  of,  56. 

Dr.  Cheynell  obtains,  139. 

Mr.  Oliver  Whitby,  curate  of,  141. 
Pevensey,  a  port  in  mediaeval  times, 

II. 

Philips,  Colonel,  of  Montacute,  256. 
Pickering,     Mr.     Benjamin,     Puritan 

divine,  137. 
Pierce,  Captain,  269. 
Pierce,  Thomas,  of  Bosham,  133. 
Pierson,  Richard,  177. 
Pinozeire,  a  trader  in  ammunition,  66. 
Pittock,  Captain  Richard,  279. 
Plundered  Ministers,  Committee  of,  136. 

appoints  County  Committees,  138. 
Poling,  John,  288. 
Popham,  Colonel  Edward,  268. 
Population  of  parishes  in  West  Sussex 

in  1641-2,  17. 
Porter,  Endymion,  72. 
Portslade,  the  Rye  troop  at,  79. 
Portsmouth,  held  by  George   Goring, 

37- 
besieged  by  Warwick  and   Waller, 

38. 

surrendered,  40. 
its  loss  a  blow  to  the  Royal  cause, 

40. 

parliamentary  anxiety  concerning,  67. 
surrendered  to  Colonel  Morley,  312. 
Colonel  Fagge,  governor  of,  313. 
Potter,  Lieutenant- Colonel,  52. 
Preston,  near  Brighthelmstone,  Judith, 

widow    of   Sir    Richard    Shirley, 

buried  at,  7. 
Cheynell  buried  at,  109. 


INDEX 


349 


Preston,    near    Brighthelmstone — con- 
tinued. 

Anthony  Shirley  of,  5,  286,  305. 
the  Shirleys  of,  288. 
the   Court   Rolls  of  the  manor  of, 

285  n. 
Preston-cum-Hove,  civil  marriages  at, 

286. 

Preva,  Sir  John,  no. 
Prince,  Robert,  59. 

Prisoners  of   war,   their  readiness  to 
take  service  with  their  captors,  86, 

95- 

Protestation  of  1641,  17. 
Pulborough,  population  of  in  1641-2, 

18. 

rising  at,  199. 

Pury,  Francis,  at  Chichester,  45. 
Pye,  Uncle,  86. 

Pym,  his  hopes  of  conciliation,  1 6. 
Charles'  attempt  to  arrest,  20. 

Quakers,   the,   disorderly  conduct   of, 

290. 

rise  of,  in  Sussex,  291. 
sufferings  of,  292. 
Cromwell's  clemency  to,  293. 

Racton,  253. 

Ramsay,     Lieut.-Colonel,     killed     at 

Arundel,  85. 
Ravenscroft,  Hall,  member  of  Sussex 

Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 
and   the  sequestration  of  Horsham 

vicarage,  137. 
Rayman,  Mr.,  arrested  at  Chichester, 

127. 

Rede,  Robert,  joiner,  of  Rye,  23. 
Reeves  [or  Ryves],  Dr.  Bruno,  Dean 

of  Chichester,  fined,  57. 
his  account  of  the  spoliation  of  the 

cathedral,  57. 

compounds  on  Oxford  Articles,  135. 
Regicides,  the  Sussex,  220. 

fate  of,  317. 
Rich,  Colonel,  198. 
Ringmer,  Springate  interred  at,  118. 
Rishton,  William,  at  Chichester,  45. 


Rivers,  Mr.,  Justice  of  the  Peace,  his 
strong  following  at  Lewes,  31. 

Rivers,  Mr.,  and  Stapley's  plot,  298. 

Rivers,  Sir  Thomas,  Bart. ,  J.  P. ,  ordered 
to  keep  watch  on  all  strangers, 
287. 

Roads  in  Sussex,  notorious  badness  of,  6. 
"  deep  and  dirty  ways,"  71. 
Lady  Springate's  journey  over,  115. 

Robartes,  Lord,  his  coach  at  Newbury, 
114. 

Roberts,  Colonel,  53. 

Robinson,  Thomas,  291. 

Robotham,  Mr.,  295. 

Rolfe,  Sergeant,  79. 

Rose, ,  of  Lewes,  287. 

Rotherfield,  Mr.  Large  and  the  living 

of,  144. 

Sir  Richard  Norton's  house  at,  164. 
John  Cawley  presented  to  the  living 
of,  302. 

Rottingdean,  powder  sent  to,  41. 

Rowkeshill,  the  Clubmen  at,  169. 

Royal  Oak,  proposed  Order  of  the, 
316. 

Rumboldswyke,  295. 

Runcton,  123. 

Runcton  [?  Duncton]  Down,  the  Club- 
men at,  169. 

Rupert,  Prince,  his  reputation  for  plun- 
dering, 35,  41. 
his  advance  on  Chichester  rumoured, 

47,  53- 

Russell,  Mr.,  29. 
Russell,  John  and  Edward,  145. 
Rye,  trials  for  witchcraft  at,  8. 

shipment  of  iron  and  firewood  from, 
9,  10. 

decay  of  harbour,  12. 

traffic  of,  with  Dieppe,  13,  65. 

the  passage-book,  13. 

privateers  watch  the  harbour,  14. 

Puritans  at,  23,  27,  29. 

foreigners  resident  at,  62. 

ordnance  sent  to  Shoreham  from,  73. 

lead  removed  from  Camber  Castle, 

73- 
the  Rye  troop  at  Arundel,  78,  85,  87. 


350       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Rye — continued. 
abortive  rising  at,  203. 
petition  to  Fairfax,  214. 
the  engagement,  226. 
grievance  of  as  to  free-quarter,  229. 
disbanded  soldiers  and  other  troubles 

at,  229. 

strict  observance  of  Sunday  at,  231. 
penalties  for  bad  language  at,  231. 
John  Evelyn's  visit  to,  266. 
shipment  of  guns  and  ammunition  for 

the  fleet  from,  269. 
smuggling  at,  269. 
the  North  Sea  fishery  fleet  of,  270. 
Blake  in  the  bay  at,  273. 
depredations  of  the  Dutch  fleet  at, 

274. 

imprisonment  of  seamen  at,  278. 
petition  to  the  Protector  from,  279. 
Colonel  Morley  elected  member  for, 

286. 

the  vicarage  augmented,  295. 
a  town  guard  set  at,  309. 
claim  for  moneys  advanced  by,  to  the 

garrison,  310. 
arrest  of  Henry  Mildmay  at,  313. 

Sackvile,  Mr.,  299. 

Sackvile,  Thomas,  of  Sedlescomb,  fined, 
128. 

St.  James,  the,  of  Dunkirk,  stranded  at 

Heene,  151. 
disposal  of,  152. 
pictures  found  on  board,  153. 
St.  John,  Oliver,  182,  227. 

Salisbury,  Goring's  winter  quarters  at, 
162. 

Salisbury,  Rev.  Mr.,  curate  of  Warning- 
camp,  28. 

Salvington,  234. 

Saxby,  Mr.,  140. 

Sea  wen,  Robert,  171. 

Sealed  Knot,  the,  282. 

Selden,   John,   his  birth,  career,  and 
unique  position,  234. 

Selden,  John,   and  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, 201. 

Self-denying  Ordinance,  the,  174. 


Selsey,    projected    landing  of   foreign 

troops  at,  182. 
Selwin,  Mr.,  junior,  299. 
Shallett,   Mr.   Francis,  at  Chichester, 

44- 
Shelley,  Sir  Charles,  of  Michelgrove, 

his  household  goods,  133. 
his  descendants,  326. 
Shelley,    Henry,   a    supporter  of   the 

Parliament,  5. 
member    of    Sussex     Sequestrating 

Committee,  120. 

appointed  Deputy-Lieutenant,  156. 
Shelley,  Colonel  Henry,  133. 
Shelley,  Sir  John,  132. 
Shelley,  John,  of  Sullington,  222. 
Shephard  [or  Sheppard],  Nicholas,  of 
Horsham,  visited  by  Colonel  Aps- 
ley,  74- 

and  the  rising  at  Horsham,  197,  200. 
Shipbuilding,  value  of  Sussex  oak  for, 

10. 
Ship-money,  assessment  of  Sussex  ports 

for,  13. 
Shirley,    Anthony,    of   Preston,    civil 

marriages  before,  286. 
one  of  Goffe's  commissioners,  288. 
member  for  Steyning  in  1659,  305. 
created  a  baronet,  315. 
Shirley,  Judith,  widow  of  Sir  Richard, 

7- 
Shirley,   Thomas,   member  of  Sussex 

Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 
Shirleys,  the,  of  Preston,  288  ».,  326. 
Shoarditch,  Mr.,  210. 
Shoreham,  trade  in  firewood  at,  10. 
its  early  importance,  n. 
assessed  for  ship-money,  14. 
Captain  Temple's  defensive   works 

at,  73- 

the  Rye  troop  at,  79. 
Captain  Temple  left  in  charge  of,  86. 
rising  of  peasants  at,  201. 
the  Dover  built  at,  277. 
sailors  enlisted  at,  307. 
Short,  William,  of  Amberley,  129. 
Sidney,  Algernon,  appointed  Governor 
of  Chichester,  164. 


INDEX 


351 


Simpson,   George,  member  of  Sussex 

Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 
Singleton,  the  living  of,  294. 
Skippon,  Sergeant- Major,  50. 
Slaugham,  the  mansion  of,  14. 
Slee,  John,  291. 
Slindon  Park,  258. 
Slingsby,  Sir  Henry,  302. 
Smith,  landlord  of  the  George  Inn  at 

Brighthelmstone,  260. 
Smith,  Captain  Ambrose,  307. 
Smith,  Richard,  88. 
Smuggling  in  the  seventeenth  century, 

269. 

Smyth,  William,  241. 
Snepp,  John,  24. 
Sommellier,  Pierre,  62. 
Southover,  Quaker  meeting  at,  291. 
South  wick,  Charles  II  embarks  at,  260. 
Sowton,  Thomas,  307. 
Speed,  Rev.  Mr.,  of  St.  Pancras,  Chi- 

chester,  28,  295. 
Spence,  William,  285. 
Springate  [or  Springett],  Anthony,  117. 
Springate,  Gulielma,  wife  of  William 

Penn,  no. 
Springate,   Herbert,   supporter  of  the 

Parliament,  5. 
member    of    Sussex     Sequestrating 

Committee,  120. 
created  a  baronet,  315. 
Springate,  Lady,  no. 
her  letter  to  her  grandson,  Springet 

Penn,  in. 
her  journey  from  London  to  Arundel, 

nS- 
her  devoted  attendance  on  her  hus- 
band, 117. 
Springate,  Sir  Thomas,  of  Broyle  Place, 

no,  112. 
Springate,  Sir  William,  raises  a  troop 

of  horse,  34. 
receives  the  thanks   of  the  House, 

41. 

at  the  siege  of  Arundel,  87. 
left  by  Waller  in  charge  of  Arundel 

Castle,  95,  115. 
falls  sick  of  a  fever,  1 10. 


his  wife's  account  of  his  parentage, 

up-bringing,  and  character,  113. 
his  death,  117. 
Stamford,  Lord,  209. 
Stane  Street,  7. 
Stanes,  Mr.,  74. 
Stanford,    Edward,    of    Slinfold,    his 

descendants,  326. 

Stanmer,  the  Puritan  rector  of,  179. 
Stanstead    House,    captured    by    the 

Royalists,  72. 
surrendered  to  Waller,  94. 
Stapley,  Anthony,  the  younger,  put  in 
the  commission  of  the  peace,  285. 
joins  John  Stapley's  plot,  297. 
turns  informer,  301. 
pardoned,  302. 

Stapley,  Colonel  Anthony,  of  Framfield 
and  Patcham,  Parliamentarian,  5. 
member  for  the  county,  16. 
his  aggressive  Puritanism,  31. 
charged  by  the  House  with  the  de- 
fence of  the  county,  42. 
Governor  of  Chichester,  62. 
at  Stanstead,  72. 
his  disagreement  with  Waller,   95, 

IS7  n. 
member    of    Sussex    Sequestrating 

Committee,  120. 
ordered  to  increase  the  Chichester 

garrison,  156,  162. 
succeeded  at  Chichester  by  Algernon 

Sidney,  164. 
his  letter  to  the  Speaker  from  Lewes, 

173- 
his  connection  with  Lord  Norwich, 

191. 

endeavours  to  remove  the  magazine 
of  Horsham  to  Arundel,  197. 

imprisons  Sussex  petitioners,  199. 

one  of  the  King's  judges,  219. 

signs  the  death-warrant,  220. 

member  of  the  Council  of  State,  225. 

Vice-Admiral  of  Sussex,  226. 

Commissioner  of  Somers  Islands, 
227. 

visited  by  Thomas  Newberry,  275. 

date  of  his  death,  285  «. 


352        SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Stapley,  John,  at  Hangleton  race,  232. 

in  command  of  a  troop,  252. 

with  Goffe  at  Lewes,  284. 

one  of  Goffe's  commissioners,  288. 

influenced  by  his   Royalist  connec- 
tions, 296. 

joins  Dr.  Hewitt's  plot,  297. 

his  confession  to  Cromwell,  299. 

discloses  the  names  of  his  associates, 
301. 

pardoned,  302. 

made  a  baronet,  315. 
Stevens,  Captain  Tristram,  65. 
Steyning,  anciently  a  port,  n. 

population  of,  in  1641-2,  18. 

rising  of  peasants  at,  201. 

Quakers  at,  292. 

Storrington,    the    incumbent    of,     se- 
questered, 142. 
Streater,  ancient,  64. 
Studeley,  Nathaniel,  285. 

one  of  Goffe's  commissioners,  288. 
Sturt,  Nicholas,  222. 
Sunday,  the  strict  observance  of,  230. 
Surprise,    TettersalFs    bark,    renamed 

Royal  Escape,  261. 
Surrenden,  Captain,  75. 
Swanbourne  Lake,  88. 
Swanley,  Captain,  45. 
Symons,  Thomas,  of  Hambledon,  256. 

Tabret,  Abel,  271. 

Taunton,   Mr.  Richard,  incumbent  of 

Ardingley,  sequestered,  142. 
Taylor,  Anne,  wife  of  George,  8. 
Taylor,  John,  of  Itchenor,  fined  on 

Truro  Articles,  126. 
Taylor,  Richard,  of  Earnley,  fined  on 

Truro  Articles,  126. 
Temple,  Captain  James,  arranges  the 

defences  of  Shoreham  and  Bramber, 

73- 

at  Shoreham,  75. 
defends  Bramber  Castle  and  holds  the 

bridge,  78. 

left  in  charge  of  Shoreham,  86. 
member    of    Sussex     Sequestrating 

Committee,  120. 


guardian  to  Sir  Charles  Shelley,  133. 

signs  the  King's  death-warrant,  220. 

his  trial  and  condemnation,  317. 
Tenterden,  278. 

Tettersall,  Nicholas,  and  the  escape  of 
Charles  II,  256. 

his  reward  at  the  Restoration,  261. 
Thanet,  Earl  of,   advances  with  Ford 
on  Lewes,  48. 

passes     from     Brighthelmstone     to 
France,  64. 

fined  by  Parliament,  124. 
Thomas,  Mark,  Deputy  Mayor  of  Rye, 

29. 

Thompson,  Maurice  and  Co.,  152. 
Thorney  Island,  46. 
Timber,  Sussex  thickly  covered  with,  5. 

use  of  in  the  ironworks,  9. 

wholesale  destruction  of,  10. 

value  of,  for  shipbuilding,  10. 
Tobacco,  planting  of,  restrained,  286. 
Tomlinson,  Colonel,  220. 
Trained  bands,  the,  33. 
Trayton,  Capt.  Ambrose,  41. 
Tremblett,  Edward,  of  Bosham,  133. 
Trevor,   Sir  John,  a  supporter  of  the 
Parliament,  5. 

member  for  Arundel,  290. 

member  for  Midhurst,  305. 
Triers,  the,  293. 

Truro  Articles  of  Surrender,  126. 
Tunbridge  waters,  the,  267. 
Twine,  Rev.  Mr.,  vicar  of  Rye,  30. 
Twineham,  Quaker  meeting  at,  291. 

Up  Park,  a  troop  of  horse  quartered  at, 

72. 
residence  of  the  Fords,  97. 

Venables,  General  Robert,  244. 
Vere,  Colonel  Horace,  180. 
Verney,  Edmund,  191. 
Verney,  Sir  Ralph,  191. 
Vesey,  Captain  Robert,  310. 
Vintner,  Mr.,  144. 

Virginia,   letter   from   the  Grand  As- 
sembly of,  126. 


INDEX 


353 


Wades,  near  Arundel,  115. 
Wages,  fixed  by  justices,  206. 

gradual  rise  of  agricultural,  207. 

of  household  servants,  208,  211. 
Wakehurst,  the  mansion  of,  14. 
Walberton,  the  Clubmen's  quarters  at, 

170. 

Waller,   Sir   William,    attacks    Ports- 
mouth, 38. 

prepares  to  attack  Chichester,  48. 

sends  a  detachment  to  capture  Arundel 
Castle,  50. 

besieges  and  takes  Chichester,  52. 

discovers  an  attempt  on  his  life,  54. 

deals  with  the  prisoners,  55. 

present  at  the  sacking  of  the  cathe- 
dral, 59. 

Major-General    of     the     associated 
counties,  67. 

his  preparations  at  Farnham,  68. 

his  views  on  soldiers'  pay,  69. 

visits  London,  So. 

invades  Sussex  after  his  success  at 
Alton,  82. 

rapidity  of  his  advance,  82. 

after  capturing  Cowdray,  takes  the 
town  of  Arundel,  84. 

escapes  assassination,  84. 

besieges  Arundel  Castle,  86. 

his  correspondence  with  Lord  Craw- 
ford, 90. 

faces  Hopton,  91. 

his  commission  as  major-general  con- 
firmed, 91. 

Arundel  Castle  surrendered  to  him 
on  his  own  terms,  93. 

receives  the  thanks  of  the  House,  94. 

his  difference  with  Colonel  Stapley, 

95- 

his  persistence   and   generalship  not 

fully  appreciated,  96. 
takes  possession  of  the  wreck  of  the 

St.  James,  151. 
salvage  awarded  him,  152. 
a  visitor  at  Herstmonceux,  209. 
Waller,  Lady  Anne,  at  Herstmonceux, 

209. 
Walsingham,  Thomas,  176. 


Walton,    Colonel,    acts   with   Morley, 

3"- 

War,  the,  indecisive  character  of  the 

first  two  years  of,  163. 
division  of  families  in,  190. 
humane  conduct  of,  195. 

Warbleton,  Quakers  at,  292. 

Warblington  Castle,  besieged  by  Hop- 
ton,  92. 

Warren,  Captain  Peter,  275. 

Warren,  Rev.  Thomas,  curate  of  Rye, 

27,  30. 

Warwick,   Earl    of,   blockades  Ports- 
mouth, 38. 

the  navy  secured  for  the  Parliament 
by,  264. 

Waters,  John,  pilot,  210. 

Welborne,  Mr.,  295. 

Wems,  Colonel,  8l. 

Wesby,  Mr.,  295. 

Westbourne,  population  of,  in  1641-2, 
18. 

West  Dean,  91. 
the  living  of,  294, 

West  Grinstead,  population  of,  in  1641 - 
42,18. 

West  Hoathly,  riot  at,  64. 

Westmeston,  26. 

Westminster  Assembly  of  Divines,  Sus- 
sex members  of  the,  137. 

Westmoreland,  Lord,  209. 

Weymouth,  trade  in  arms  with,  65. 

Whalley,  Lieut-General,  320. 

Wheathampstead,  the  King  at,  1 86. 

Wheatley,  Captain,  268. 

Whetham,  Colonel,  governor  of  Ports- 
mouth, 312. 

Whiligh  in  East  Hoathly,  19. 

Whitacre,   Rev.   Mr.,  curate  of  Rye, 

3°- 
Whitby,  Mr.  Oliver,  curate  of  Petworth, 

his  life  threatened,  141. 
White,   Colonel  John,   author  of  the 

"Century  of  Malignant   Priests," 

142. 

White,  Justice  of  the  Peace,  31. 
White,  Thomas,  sequestrator  of  Hors- 

ham  vicarage,  137. 


AA 


354       SUSSEX  IN  THE  GREAT  CIVIL  WAR 


Whitehom,  Captain,  279. 

Whitelock,  President,  307,  308. 

Whitfield,  Thomas,  member  of  Sussex 
Sequestrating  Committee,  120. 

Wicker,  a  Parliamentary  soldier,  149. 

Wilkason,  Bryan,  291. 

Williams,    Richard,    Town    Clerk    of 
Chichester,  fined,  123. 

Wilmot,  Lord,  contrasted  with  Goring, 

246. 
and  the  escape  of  Charles  II,  254. 

Wilson,  Mr.,  nonconformist,  113. 

Wilson,  Mr.,  of  Eastbourne  Place,  188. 
his  house  searched,  300. 
his  descendants,  326. 

Wilts  and  Dorset,  origin  of  the  Club- 
men's rising  in,  166. 

Winchelsea  under  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor, 10. 

its  early  importance,  II. 
its  decay  described  by  John  Evelyn, 
267. 

Winchester  Articles  of  Surrender,  131. 

Winchester,  Marquis  of,  his  defence  of 

Basing  House,  158. 
his  correspondence  with  Colonel  Mor- 
ley,  159. 

Windebank,  Sir  Francis,  13. 

Winnford,  Captain,  45. 

Wisborough   Green,  population  of,  in 
1641-2,  18. 


Wiston,  the  mansion  of,  14. 

seized  by  Cavaliers,  79. 

Cavalier  flight  from,  85. 
Wolfe,  Nicholas,  at  Chichester,  45. 

treats  with  Waller  for  the  surrender 

of  the  city,  53. 
Wood,  Henry,  203. 
Wood,  John,  203. 
Woodcock,  Francis,  328. 
Woodcock,  Henry,  326. 
Woodcock,    Thomas,  of    Newtimber, 
joins  Stapley's  plot,  297. 

tried  and  acquitted,  302. 
Worcester,  battle  of,  252. 
Wray,    Mr.    William,    at    Chichester, 

44- 
Wrecks,  the  Sussex  attitude  towards, 

153- 

Wright,  Robert,  182. 
Wynn,  Mr.,  227. 

Yacht,  the  first  English,  2IO. 
Yalden    [or    Yaldwyn],    William,    of 
Blackdown,  lessee  of  Lord  Mont- 
ague's estate,  131. 
High  Sheriff  in  1656,  276. 
tradition    of   Cromwell's    visits    to, 

276. 

member  for  Midhurst,  305. 
Yates,  Richard,  197,  288. 
Young,  Major,  169,  252. 


CHISWICK  PRESS  :  CHARLES  WHITTINGHAM  AND  CO. 
TOOKS  COURT,  CHANCERY  LANE,  LONDON. 


from  which  It  was  borrowed 


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